


Paper Shrapnel

by Pigzxo



Series: Paper Shrapnel [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 53,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4627512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigzxo/pseuds/Pigzxo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the Vietnam War, Mickey gets drafted and is sent to train under Sergeant Ian Gallagher. Ian’s a young sergeant who takes care to get to know his drafters and make them feel safe. But he has his work cut out for him when it comes to Mickey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also on my tumblr (wellimhavinga3outof10day)

Gunshots rang out across the camp. A couple of soldiers poked their heads out of their tents, looking around in the early morning air. Conversations started up, low and buzzing, barely audible from where Ian stood at the front of the clearing. He bit back a sigh, cocked the gun, and shot three more times straight into the air.

            The soldiers came running, scrambling out of their tents half-dressed and scurrying towards the clearing. Sloppy lines of five came into being as the soldiers rubbed their eyes sleepily and stared at their drill sergeant. Ian blinked.

            “I’m sorry. Did I say ‘at ease’?”

            All at once the lines and the men straightened. Their feet clamped together, one arm going ramrod straight while the other was raised in salute. Ian couldn’t help the small stirring of pride in his chest. Given another week, he was sure that he could have them blinking in perfect unison.

            He swallowed that pride, and replaced it with anger. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. “You hear a fucking gun and your first instinct is to line up nice and straight so the goddamn firing squad can come and mow you down?”

            A couple of the soldiers shifted uncomfortably. Ian made a mental note of their names so that he could tell their lieutenant to keep an eye on them. He searched the rest of the group, waiting for an answer to come from one of them. All of them were painfully silent as they stood there, watching the ground.. A couple of them shot furtive looks at the gun in his hand.

            “Or was your first instinct to run to me and ask who the fuck was firing shots?” Ian suggested. “I’m not your goddamn boss anymore, in case you’ve forgotten. Lieutenant Lishman took your sorry asses over a few days ago. To prepare you to go to war. How’s that going, by the way?”

            Silence. A few soldiers shuffled their feet. Finally, one of them piped up. “With all due respect, sir, what exactly were we supposed to do?”

            Ian’s eyes focused on the man standing in the second row, still ramrod straight, with an expression of innocence on his boxed features. A smile quirked across Ian’s lips as he raised the gun and watched the man swallow. He clicked on the safety.

            “Great question,” Ian said. “What are you supposed to do if you’re getting shot at? Well, by all means, lining up in perfect order seems like a great idea. Especially in the middle of the jungle when you won’t know where the enemy is or where their shots are coming from. Running to your lieutenant and asking him what to do is also a fantastic option. Especially since after speaking to him you’ll have to run back to your tents without cover to find the guns you’ve been storing _UP YOUR ASSES._ ”

            Ian dropped the gun onto the ground and stepped closer to the front line. The soldiers there swallowed, shifted, or averted their eyes, but none of them dared to take a step back. “In less than a week, you’ll be at war. Less than a fucking week. And you don’t know what to do if someone is shooting at you? You shoot the fuck back!”

            “We were supposed to shoot you, sergeant?”

            “Well, you could’ve brought guns. Weapons of any sort. Done anything other than scramble around like a bunch of teenage boys hearing the garage door open at their girlfriend’s house!”

            For a long moment, no one spoke. The silence weighed heavily against the soldiers as the morning chill weaved its way through camp. A couple of soldiers started to shift out of their at attention positions, falling into at ease without a word from Ian. Ian bristled but felt it was against the point to impose military order. A minutes passed and then another, until someone behind Ian cleared his throat.

            Ian glanced over his shoulder. The soldiers snapped back into attention. Lieutenant Lishman smiled thinly and said, “How about we start our laps for today, men?”

            Without another word, the soldiers started out and Lishman watched them. When they were all gone, he took a step towards Ian and said, “Well, that was... colourful.”

            Ian grunted.

            Lishman pushed the gun out of the way with the tip of his shoe and said, “A little extreme, maybe. These men know what they’re going to be facing. They’re good men. You trained them yourself.”

            “Apparently not well enough.”

            “Are you all right, sergeant?”

            With a laugh, Ian said, “I’m just making sure I’m not sending forty men across the ocean to die. Is that all right, lieutenant?”

            The lieutenant said nothing. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a white envelope with an army seal on the front. Ian swallowed and almost flinched back from it. But there was no one else out there dying for him. He grabbed the corner and ripped it open.

            “New recruits,” Lishman explained. “They’re sending them in a week after these ones leave.”

            Ian nodded. He already had the letter open and was scanning down the names. Five of them had the word ‘DRAFT’ printed next to their names in bright red letters. Ian took special care with those five names, memorizing each one quickly, until he came to the last one.

            _Mickey Milkovich._ Badass extraordinaire who had broken a teacher’s nose in fourth grade when told that he had to do an art project, even if he wasn’t a girl. Ian let a small smile slip across his lips as he pictured Mickey getting the draft letter. The chance he would listen to big government giving him orders was only slightly higher than the chance of him listening to a teacher sixteen years ago.

            The chance of Mickey listening to him was even smaller.

            Folding the letter back up, Ian headed towards the mess hall. Lishman would run the men through the rest of their drills and get them ready for the fight at hand. Ian’s job protecting these men was done. He had a new forty to look out for, whether they wanted to be looked out for or not.


	2. Chapter 2

Mickey stepped through the front door of the house, shedding layers and listening to the gentle hiss of the iron. He dumped his things on the coat rack and stepped into the living room. He pecked his mom on the cheek, half checking her hands for signs of iron burns as he brushed past, and then dropped a bag of groceries into the kitchen.

            The TV was on in the next room, buzzing with static and awkwardness. Mickey glanced in and saw Mandy sitting next to their father on the couch. She had made herself as small as possible, curled up against the armrest, and Terry sat on the cushion beside her, oblivious to her discomfort. Mickey waited in the doorway until she looked at him and he cocked an eyebrow.

            Mandy shook her head.

            With some hesitation, Mickey pulled himself from the doorway and walked back into the living room. “Any mail?” he asked.

            His mom sniffed and then gestured with the iron towards a stack on the kitchen table. Mickey stared at her a moment, taking in the scene. She was ironing a shirt –blue, buttoned, with a collar. One of his, if he wasn’t mistaken. She was pressing so hard into the fabric that Mickey was surprised that the cheap shirt hadn’t torn in two. Or burst into flames.

            “Mom?” Mickey asked. “Y’alright?”

            She looked up from the ironing. Her bright blue eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. She did her best to force a smile, the muscles in her cheeks shuddering with disuse. The iron rested against the middle of the shirt as her hands went still. “You’ll be great,” she whispered.

            Mickey blinked. He snatched the mail off the table and started rustling through its contents. Junk mail. Credit cards his dad would no doubt sign up for. Collection requests. Warnings to pay the bills. And finally, at the bottom of the pile, already ripped open across the top, was a stark white envelope with the military seal printed clearly on its left side. Mickey dropped the envelope.

            “No,” he said.

            “Mickey-”

            “No,” he repeated. “Not happening. I’m not going, okay? I’m not fucking going.”

            His mom dropped the iron. It shuddered against the side of the ironing board and the whole thing went over. Mickey bit his tongue at the crash, his heart heavy inside his chest. His mom was shaking and he knew, for however brief a moment, he had reminded her of his dad.

            “What the fuck is going on in here?” Terry boomed.

            “My fault,” Mickey said. He already had the ironing board righted and was clutching the iron tightly in his right hand. He flicked the switch to turn it off, but didn’t let go. He shifted slightly so that he was in front of his mom. “Nothing to worry about.”

            Terry stared at him for a long moment and then nodded. He turned to leave, but at the last moment, his attention was caught by the open envelope on the table. Picking it up, he read through it and smiled. “Good for you. Finally off to war.”

            “What?” Mandy asked, appearing behind him.

            Terry showed her the letter. “Your brother’s headed to ‘Nam.”

            Mandy’s eyes widened and she snatched the envelope from him. She looked up suddenly, meeting Mickey’s eyes. “You can’t,” she said.

            “I won’t.”

            “Like hell you won’t,” Terry spat. He took back the envelope, rattling Mandy in the process, and stepped towards Mickey. “This is a mission handed down by your government. You do what they fucking tell you to do. Bad enough that they had to tell you at all. Your brothers signed up and went off months ago. You should’ve gone with ‘em.”

            Mickey bit back the urge to laugh at that suggestion. His eyes flickered away from his father and back to Mandy, who had crossed her arms tightly and drawn herself back into a corner. She shrugged when she saw him looking, contradicting her earlier stance that he had to stay.

            “I can’t fucking go,” Mickey said. He searched his head for a reason, one his father might actually accept. He rolled through memories until he stopped on one that was slightly blurred by alcohol and the unrealistic nature of his dad smiling while patting him on the back. A face came into view momentarily, along with the words he had told her to swallow. “The hooker’s pregnant.”

            Terry frowned. “What?”

            “What’s-her-face from the spa,” Mickey said. “You know, the girl with brown hair and the thick accent and a tongue strong as steel? Name like gibberish? She’s pregnant. Mine. She told me.”

            “Svetlana?”

            The name didn’t ring any bells, but Mickey nodded.

            “Fucking commie whore? That’s who my grandchildren’s mother’s gonna be?”

            Mickey swallowed hard, unsure of what to say to that. He was ninety-nine percent sure it had been Terry pushing him towards the girl, whispering that she was as good in bed as she looked to be. He remembered his alcohol-addled brain heading towards her, slipping the cash into her hand, just to get his dad to shut up about him needing a girl in his life. Even if it was just for stress relief.

            “Thought you liked her?” Mickey spat.

            “As a whore,” Terry replied. “Not a daughter-in-law.”

            “I’m not fucking marrying her. She’s just having my kid.”

            “Lots of men come home from war to a kid.”

            Mickey swallowed the automatic retort that most men came back from war to a kid that wasn’t _theirs_. He couldn’t stand in front of his mom forever and the fact that he was born during WWII wouldn’t escape Terry’s notice.

            “It’s a moot point anyways,” Terry said, sounding surprisingly clear for a moment even as he stumbled back from Mickey. Beer was heavy on his breath, causing him to reach out for a wall. “They’re not gonna let you out for that, boy. Gotta be something bigger. Medical reasons. Flat feet. Faggotry.” Mickey flinched at the word. Terry hit him hard against the cheek, trying to brush it off as a friendly pat. He laughed. “You’re going to war, my boy. Smile. Rejoice. See if some of the other girls will give you a discount for it.”

            He winked and walked back into the other room. Mandy recoiled as he walked by and didn’t follow him. A moment later, he called for her and she looked up at Mickey. She tried to smile. “Guess I should wish you luck?”

            Mickey smiled. “Not going for a while.”

            She nodded and stepped forward to give him a hug. She whispered, “I can take care of myself, you know? Couple more weeks and I’ll be out of here. Married to some rich fucker from the other side of town. You’ll see.”

            Mickey caught her hand as she pulled away and kissed her knuckles. “Send me letters from your mansion. Lots of ‘em.”

            With a sniff, she nodded and stepped away from him to follow their father into the next room. Mickey set the iron down, balancing it on the precarious table, before turning towards his mother. “Mom?” he whispered.

            She sniffed hard and he sighed.

            “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Come on, mom. Don’t... don’t fucking cry.”

            Sobs racked her as she tried to swallow them and Mickey reached forward to wrap his arms around her. Her head came down onto his shoulder, soaking through the ratty sweater he was wearing. He bit his bottom lip hard, tasting metal against his tongue. He wouldn’t cry. A man going to war didn’t cry.

***

            A week later the orders came in. Mickey ripped open the envelope, read it silently, and then pinned it up against the fridge. Mandy started crossing off the days on the calendar, counting down until Mickey would be gone. Mickey tried to change the game, marking down the date when Iggy would be back from his tour in just four months time. He tried to pretend that Mandy was marking down the days until then and when her hand started to shake knowing that Mickey only had a few more days, she pretended too.

            Early in the morning, the day that the bus was supposed to leave, Mickey rolled out of bed. He clambered into the freshly pressed army training uniform his mom had laid at the foot of his bed. Then he shoved one more pair of socks and another muscle shirt into the duffel bag beside it.

            He zipped it up despite the fact that it was still half-empty. The top sunk down, the fabric deflating like a badly baked cake, and Mickey sank with it. He wrapped his hand around the bag’s handle, gripping it until his knuckles turned white, and then hoisted it up. It swung, nearly weightless.

            Grabbing bread from the kitchen, he made toast and stuffed the slice between his teeth. He headed out, only stopping when he heard a door creak in the hallway.

            “Where you going?” Mandy asked sleepily.

            Mickey swallowed and, for a moment, dared to hope that she’d actually forgotten. “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said.

            “Bullshit.”

            “Mandy-”

            She stepped forward and hugged him. Sniffing against his shoulder, she whispered, “Don’t you dare fucking die out there. I can’t do that again, okay? I can’t... I can’t fucking sit at another candlelight vigil.”

            “You better not have a fucking vigil for me,” Mickey replied. He tried to smile as he pulled away from her. “Everything’s gonna be fine. I’m not gonna leave you like that loser did, okay?”

            “He’s not a loser.”

            “Did he have a fucking mansion?”

            Mandy cracked a smile, but it seemed forced in the early morning darkness. Mickey pecked her on the forehead and took a step back. “You’ll be fine?”

            “I’m not new around here.”

            Mickey nodded and stepped out the front door. The sun was coming up red behind him, pouring cold winter heat across the Chicago streets. He took the stairs down two at a time and turned towards the recruiting office.

            Candles flickered below its front window as the men lined up beside it. A couple pictures and letters from the family rested against the dripping wax. Mickey recognized one in Mandy’s curling script; a letter she had meant to send to the front but had never gotten to. Apparently ten cent stamps cut into Terry’s beer money. Mickey hadn’t been able to scrounge enough change together before the boy’s sister had shown up at their front door, asking for Mandy.

            He shook off the thought that Mandy would have to do that for him. Who would she be going to see? Svetlana? She hadn’t even cared that he was going off to war. She’d just given him fifteen percent off and sent him on his way, complaining that he had a baby to take care of, so he better not die.

            Mickey showed his orders to the officer at the door to the bus, along with a piece of ID, and then stepped onto the bus at his nod. There was a long ride ahead of them and Mickey had the feeling it would be mostly silently. Every man already on the bus was staring out at the candles on the sidewalk, worried, or hoping, that they would be next.


	3. Chapter 3

Ian took a drag on his cigarette and let the smoke curl into the early morning air. The bus would be coming up the dirt path any minute now, full of bustling recruits, either excited or terrified to be going to war.

            He caught sight of it just as the tip of his cigarette burned a little too close to his fingertips. He dropped it in the grass and put it out with the heel of his boot. With a stretch of his deeply sore body, Ian walked over to the flagpole and stood in front of it. He fashioned himself into a model of good army posture, even going so far as to adjust his hat and button his uniform all the way up to the collar.

            The bus trundled to a stop and its doors creaked open. Young men started to file off, looking around for their drill sergeant. The few that spotted Ian started over and the others followed. Bursting duffle bags hung off of their shoulders, bumping into the hips of the men next to them. The bus emptied and for a moment the driver left the door open. Ian inclined his head and gave him a small salute.

            The entire company turned to watch as the door of the bus closed and the vehicle made a wide turn to get back on the road. Slowly, the group turned back to Ian, watching with uncertain eyes as Ian stared at them. A couple dropped their duffle bags. Others hiked them up higher on their shoulders. A total of three out of forty stood at attention, but even those three were too nervous to raise their hands in salute.

            “ATTEN-SHUN!” Ian shouted.

            A quick scramble followed. Bags dropped to the ground, feet shuffled together, and mass confusion ensued as not one of them seemed to know the actual difference between ‘attention’ and ‘at ease’. One of the men who had had it right the first time, who had been standing stock straight before the order had even came, shifted down to at ease.

            Ian surveyed the men with lazy eyes. He still stood straight, barely even moving enough to breathe. “Attention,” he said casually, “is the one where you salute.”

            Everyone at ease immediately changed positions. Everyone too nervous to raise a hand to their foreheads did so so fast that Ian was sure there would be lined bruises across their skin tomorrow. Still a few of them weren’t standing straight enough and a couple of them had uniforms so wrinkled that they must have been wrestling on the bus. Or wrestling in their uniforms before getting onto the bus.

            “Welcome,” Ian began, only minorly regretting the word. “I am Sergeant Ian Gallagher. This camp, Camp Waterloo, has been in commission since the American entrance into World War One. It has trained soldiers who have given their lives against enemies greater than the one you will face. It has trained more soldiers that have come back safely, in one piece, and ready to live out their lives, than soldiers that have died for their country. I am here to make sure that you fall into the former group. If you listen to me, if you train like your life depends on it, which it does, you will come home.”

            A single snort of laughter met this declaration. Ian cocked an eyebrow.

            “Does someone have something to say?” he asked.

            “Yeah,” a voice piped up. “We’re all coming home in body bags and you know it.”

            Ian smirked and nodded his head. “Would the man with this opinion care to make himself known to the rest of the group?”

            There was a slight shuffling from the back of the group. A man walked forward, dark hair a shadowy contrast to the pink and purple sky. He had his hand raised in the air sarcastically and a biting smile on his lips. His uniform was wrinkled and yet spotted with stains that could have only come from a broken-down iron. There was a fine layer of grime on his face. He could have come straight from one of the body bags he was certain he would end up in.

            “Right here, sir,” he said.

            “Your name, cadet.”

            “Mickey.”

            Ian shook his head, “Last name basis around here.”

            “Milkovich.”

            “Milkovich,” Ian repeated slowly. His eyes glanced down across the man’s body before meeting the too blue eyes staring him down. The strength coming from Mickey was nothing new –rough and tumble might as well as been Mickey’s middle names. It was the easy swagger, the faked confidence, and the heart-stopping smirk that made Ian look twice at the man he had only known by rumour.

            Ian nodded, as if to himself, and then took a step forward so that he was practically on Mickey’s toes. He had a good four inches on him which made it easy to look down on him like he was a bug that could be squished at will. “Perhaps you would care to respect your fellow soldiers enough to not spread wild and malicious rumours about what you believe to be happening overseas.”

            “Perhaps you would care not to give them false hope,” Mickey said mockingly.

            “My job is to train you well enough that the lieutenant I hand you off to can bring you home alive,” Ian replied. “I am very, very good at my job, Milkovich.”

            “Yeah?” Mickey smirked. “Is that why you’re not out there? Not getting shot at by Charlie? Because you’re such a damn good trainer? Do you have any fucking clue what’s going on over there or what we’re about to deal with? And before you say that you do, army propaganda videos don’t mean shit.”

            Ian shoved Mickey back, hard. Mickey stumbled into the first row of soldiers, barely managing not to fall on his ass, and the smile came off his face like soap on graffiti. Blue eyes met Ian’s steadily, the challenge in them clear and unwavering. Mickey was a second away from rolling up his sleeves and taking swings.

            Carefully, Ian shifted his eyes off of Mickey and to the rest of the company. He smiled companionably and said, “Milkovich has just offered to show you what your morning runs will look like in three weeks time when I have you all in shape. Ten laps around the camp. No breaks. No water.”

            “Fuck you.”

            “And he wants to wash the camp flag,” Ian added. “Personally I wouldn’t want to climb the flagpole after ten laps, but if he wants to, I say we let him.”

            Ian shifted his eyes back to those of his new, openly defiant cadet. He closed off the part of him he usually showed to the new ones. The warmth. The caring. The part of him that wanted them to trust him. The part of him that allowed them to believe they were coming back alive. If Mickey wanted to believe he was destined for a body bag, Ian was happy to let him. He only hoped that that belief would become a prediction.

            After a moment, Mickey dropped his eyes, losing the power play. Ian blinked, surprised at how easily Mickey had succumbed to his authority. Shaking it off, Ian smiled brightly at the rest of the company and said, “If you’d all like to head into the mess hall for breakfast, go ahead. You’ll meet our chef in there. Be nice to him. He cooks what he wants, but he might be persuaded to make something more homey if he likes you.”

            The group started to move and Ian looked back at Mickey. “Start running.”

            Mickey flipped him the bird and then broke into a steady jog. Ian bristled at the slight, but let it slide.

            Two laps in Mickey dropped his coat somewhere along the dusty track. Ian had taken up residence against the flagpole, puffing on a cigarette. He watched as, by the third lap, the man was covered in sweat. By the fourth, his speed had faded to the point where he would have been faster power walking. By the fifth, his feet were dragging, he was coughing, his legs were trembling, and he was licking his lips to keep them from cracking.

            As Mickey approached the flagpole, he glanced at Ian without a word. Blowing smoke into his face, Ian said, “Halfway there.”

            The fact that Mickey didn’t flip him off again would have been a miracle if Ian believed the man had any energy left to do so. As it was, he was on his third cigarette and contemplating the nine year old boy that had attacked a teacher. The nine year old boy that would have spit in Ian’s face rather than start running.

            He came around the sixth time and Ian called, “Give you a break if you answer a question.”

            “Water,” Mickey replied. He did his best to sound menacing, but it fell flat in his parched throat.

            Ian shook his head, “It’s not even hot out.”

            Mickey blew past him.

            The sun came up in full winter force. The rest of the company meandered back into the camp and Ian motioned for them to sit and watch. Thirty-nine men settled down on the grass, easily grouping themselves into their cliques. Ian mentally checked off each type of soldier. The die-hards (those who had been working their whole lives to join the army), the escapees (those who were using the army to leave their personal problems behind), the legacies (those with a world war veteran for a father and a desire to please), and the drafters. Mickey would fit in nicely with their group.

            On the ninth lap, Mickey paused momentarily to vomit next to the flagpole. Chunks of food splattered onto Ian’s boots.. He swore under his breath, slipping the cigarette out from between his lips to admonish Mickey, but he was already gone. He was stumbling by this point, barely managing to stay on his own two feet, but still going. Ian stared after him for a second, then wiped his boots on the grass. The fact that he was still running was miracle enough without Ian asking for an apology.

            With a cloud of dust, Mickey skidded in for the last lap and fell onto the ground. Ian watched him casually, barely higher than him from where he sat against the flagpole. Blue eyes glanced towards him, barely open, sweat slicking back every emotion. Mickey reached out a hand half-heartedly and Ian rolled over a canteen.

            The whole thing was gone in thirty seconds flat. Mickey had managed to make his way into a sitting position again, but his legs were still shaking. Ian considered giving him a break, but thirty-nine men were still watching. Thirty-nine men who needed to respect him if they had any hope of coming home alive.

            “You forgetting something, Milkovich?”

            Those blue eyes flashed violently and Ian swallowed the urge to back down. He cocked an eyebrow, letting the cold he had shown before take over his look. Mickey swallowed and struggled to his feet. He placed a hand on either side of the flagpole and Ian shifted out of the way.

            Mickey almost immediately removed his hands. He rubbed them against his pants then positioned them again. His eyes scanned the pole for notches, handholds or footrests. There were none. Just the large wooden pole and the string to bring down the flag.

            “You waiting for something?” Ian asked.

            He got no response. Mickey heaved himself upwards. He scrambled on weakened legs to get up the whole length. About halfway up, Ian dismissed the rest of the company to go get lunch.

             He watched as they disappeared into the mess hall before glancing back at Mickey. Red lines carved themselves into Mickey’s hands, the new ones indistinguishable from the old. Clearing his throat, Ian called, “You can come down, Milkovich.”

            No response. Mickey barely even shifted on the pole. Ian watched in silence for ten more minutes as Mickey struggled to the top of the pole. He unwrapped the flag and then slid down, miniscule tears running down the fabric of his pants as the rough bark scratched against it. Shaking, he handed the flag to Ian.

            “I said you could come down.”

            “You told me to get the fucking flag,” Mickey replied, “and I did.”

            Ian opened his mouth to reply but Mickey was walking away. Ian watched as the man casually made his way into the mess hall as if nothing was wrong. He was a little slow and more than a little unsteady, but he had bounced back with minimal effort.

            After a moment, Ian turned to reattach the flag to its string and hoisted it up into the sky. Then, dusting off his hands, he headed towards the mess hall to get lunch.


	4. Chapter 4

Mickey sat down at the end of a cafeteria table. He was a foot away from the nearest man and about to dig into his mac and cheese when he felt a pair of eyes on him. He looked up to see Ian standing there with his arms crossed and a look on his face that wasn’t about to take any bullshit. Ian inclined his head towards the other men. Suppressing an eye roll, Mickey shifted his tray over.

            The man sitting next to him smiled goofily. He had blonde hair pouring into his bright green eyes and a gap between his two front teeth. “Denny,” he said, extending a hand.

            Mickey took his tray in his hands and got up from the table. He walked to another table where a handful of other men sat, dirtier than Mickey only because the sweat had washed off a good deal of his grime, and nudged the edge of the bench. It didn’t budge at all.

            “Seat taken?” Mickey asked.

            One of the guys flourished his hand towards the seat in an overdone gesture of welcome. His face was completely blank and he was using his fork to separate his pasta into columns. Four guys sat around the table and not one of them offered a name or a hand to Mickey. All of them simply continued to eat in silence, barely even aware of his presence.

            Mickey smiled at the silence, welcoming the anonymity, and started eating. Not long after –although by the amount of food Mickey had downed it was hard to tell– Ian walked over to the table.

            “Nice to see you boys getting along,” he said.

            He was met with a chorus of blank stares and the sound of vigorous chewing.

            Ian smiled like he was used to it. “As you’re probably aware, you’re the only men in this company that have been drafted. As such, I’d like to take the time to get to know all of you a little better, get you better acquainted with the army and our practices, be available-”

            “Wait,” Mickey cut in. He swallowed the last few noodles in his mouth. A particularly large spoonful had prevented him from cutting off Ian’s pageant boy speech any earlier. “You’re telling me every single one of those idiots volunteered to be killed in a foreign country?”

            “They volunteered to serve their country.”

            “They volunteered to die in a war that has no purpose.”

             Ian’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently and Mickey licked his lips to hide his smile at the sergeant’s indignation. Then, after a second, Ian exhaled with a smile and said, “All right then, Milkovich, looks like I’m going to start with you.”

            “Yeah? What’s the punishment? Ten more laps? Climb another flagpole? You got guns around here to shoot me with?”

            “Don’t tempt me.”

            Mickey ran his tongue across the bottom of his lip as he smiled. Ian’s eyes traced its path across his lips. Mickey immediately retracted his tongue and looked down at his food, even though breaking eye contact was like shattering glass right in his face.

            There was a moment of silence before Ian knocked on the table once with his knuckles, a meaningless gesture that somehow sent shivers through Mickey’s spine, and then said, “After we wrap up tonight, take a shower and then come see me. You understand, Milkovich?”

            “Yes, sir,” Mickey said with a mock salute. Then he watched with guarded shakiness as Ian walked away.

***

            Mickey skipped the shower. He was dripping in sweat, his uniform already destroyed first day out, and warm water felt more like a blessing than any words brought down from God himself could have. But the army bathroom was one big shower stall, water running down across dingy tiles as every guy in the company stripped naked and headed into the steam.

            It was too fucking gay for him.

            Instead he headed right over to Ian’s tent, standing by the door for an awkwardly long moment while trying to decide how best to knock on a tent flap. Then he simply cleared his throat and walked in to find his sergeant shirtless with his pants unzipped and hanging at his waist. Mickey glanced away quickly.

            “Sorry, I-”

            “No problem,” Ian replied. Mickey could feel Ian’s green-blue eyes scanning him as he waited for the sound of a zipper being done up. He tried his best to remember if he knew a sound for a t-shirt being pulled on. He didn’t think there was one. “Take a seat.”

            “I’m fine.”

            Ian shrugged and pulled on a shirt. Mickey looked up a little too early, catching a glimpse of sculpted abs disappearing under army-issue grey cotton. He tried to convince himself looking up too fast had been a mistake but his stomach curled with dark nausea.

            Mickey cleared his throat. “So why am I fucking here?”

            “I told you.”

            “You think I was listening?”

            Ian exhaled a small laugh as he sat down on the cot. His smile was curious, like a diamond found in the depth of a coal mine. It made Mickey wrap himself tighter, arms crossing to the point where he was sure he would find red lines on his chest tomorrow and his jaw clenched.

            “I thought maybe I’d earned your respect,” Ian replied. “Stupid. Not like white trash Southsiders respect anyone but... well, I half expected you to spit in my face when I asked you to run laps.”

            “Considered it.”

            “And?”

            “You had a look in your eye.”

            “What look?”

            Mickey locked his eyes with Ian’s. He searched for that darkness again, the cold that had met him out in the middle of the field, and didn’t see it. Not that that was unusual. His dad had become a pro at hiding it, turning it off whenever a cop or a teacher asked a few too many questions about where the bruises were coming from. And Ian had an ulterior motive just like his father did. To make people like him. To make them see someone safe.

            “What look?” Ian prompted again.

            “The ‘I-can-and-will-do-worse’ look,” Mickey replied. He immediately regretted the words, his heart coiling up in chains as he willed the words pulled back from the air. The safety of Ian’s voice was just an illusion. One he fell for way too often.

            Ian’s eyes sobered though and dropped to the ground. Not the reaction Mickey was used to. He watched as Ian rubbed long, strong fingers across the back of his neck and his whole body stretched out with a yawn.

            “I’m not here to scare you,” Ian said. His eyes gradually moved back up to Mickey’s face, shining in a way that was completely unfamiliar. “But I do need your respect and the respect of all the men out there. So when you call me out on the first day, I have to make an example of you.”

            “I get that.”

            “Do you? Because I don’t want you to be worried about talking to me or coming to me with anything at all. I won’t do anything to hurt you.”

            Mickey spat. “Do I look like some bitch whose pants you’re trying to get in?”

            Ian laughed. The sound sent shivers down Mickey’s spine.

            “I don’t fucking need you giving me speeches about looking out for me,” Mickey said. “I’m here because I was drafted. Teach me about the army, don’t teach me about the army, you won’t change my fucking mind.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because I’m gonna die over there whether I believe it’s for my country or the president’s ego,” Mickey snapped. “Whatever you’ve got to say doesn’t change that.”

            Ian nodded slowly. His gaze was hardening. Not to ice, but to something more calculating, as if he was formulating a plan on how to deal with him. Mickey almost laughed. Here he was, standing in a canvas tent in the middle of god-knows-where USA and a guy who looked to be about three years younger than him was about to try to control his thinking. He was about to try to ‘understand’ him.

            “Can I ask you a question?” Ian said.

            “Just fucking did.”

            Mickey turned. He had a hand on the tent flap and a foot out the door when Ian’s voice came to him. Not condescending or fatherly or arrogant, just curious. Like his eyes and his smile.

            “Why didn’t you sign up yourself?”

            Looking over his shoulder, Mickey said, “You fucking kidding me?”

            Ian shrugged, “It’s a good amount of money for signing up. Takes care of your family. Gets you away from them. Believe in the war or don’t believe in it. Anywhere’s got to be better than the Southside.”

            “How would you know that?”

            “Grew up about a block away from you.”

            Mickey was silent for a moment. He ran through his memories, looking for a blurred face that might have had red hair and the name Gallagher. Only one Gallagher came to mind.

            “The kid who died,” Mickey said. “The one with the candles and flowers and crap.”

            “My brother.”

            A long silence stretched between them before Mickey cleared his throat. The calm with which Ian said those two words cracked Mickey open a little. “My brothers are already out there, so we got the money,” he admitted. “But my sister? It’s best not to leave her alone. And shitty Southside life or not, I’ve got no intention of dying.”

            “That might be more believable if you stopped saying you were going to.”

            Mickey smiled. “I might stop saying that if there weren’t more bodies flying home than there are men flying out.”

            He stepped out of the tent and into the night air. The flap hit his legs and slowly slid closed. With a shiver, he headed off into the night, picking through the small maze until he came upon the green tent that he had been told was his. He stepped in to find Denny fast asleep on the cot to the left.

            With a muffled curse, Mickey unlaced his boots and slipped into bed.


	5. Chapter 5

Slowly soldiers began to get out of their tents. Despite the early morning, all of them were on high alert, dressed in their boots, underwear and grey t-shirts. The wake-up call had gone out ten minutes before and general panic had ensued.

            Ian waited patiently in the middle of the training area, blowing smoke into the air like a call for help. A couple of soldiers started towards him. A big, bulky man took the lead –one of the legacies, if Ian remembered correctly– and said, “Someone took our stuff.”

            Cocking an eyebrow, Ian replied, “You mean the stuff behind me?”

            The soldier looked around Ian’s shoulder and then started forward. Ian held out a hand lazily, barely offering any resistance when the soldier pushed against it. His eyes flashed coldly though and, combined with the smirk on his lips, the challenge was clear. The soldier looked him up and down, calculating in dumb grey eyes whether or not he could take his sergeant.

            “How about you take a step back?” Ian suggested, blowing smoke into the man’s face.

            He watched uninterestedly as the man’s hands curled into fists and prepared to drop his cigarette. His free hand curled in response but other than that he remained calm, still and in control. He’d never had to hit a cadet before, but there was a first time for everything.

            The man stepped back and the rest of his group went with him. They filed into neat lines, the die-hards in place first, and stood in a lazy facsimile of attention. Others who wandered over were more quick to realize that their stuff stood behind the drill sergeant. They were quicker still to realize simply going to get their bags wasn’t an option.

            The last man stepped into place. Milkovich. Ian saw the man’s lips form a curse word and he smiled. Mickey shot him a nasty look.

            “All right,” Ian shouted as he looked over the recruits. “As you’ve all realized, your duffle bags were stolen from your tents this morning. I have kindly left you a shirt and your boots.”

            “Still fucking freezing,” someone called.

            The comment only made Ian smile wider. “There are forty nearly identical duffle bags sitting in a pile behind me. You have two minutes to collect your duffle bags. Everyone must have possession of their own bag at the end of the forty minutes or we start over. Sound simple?”

            The soldiers nodded.

            “Good,” Ian replied. He stepped out of the way. “Your time started ten seconds ago.”

            The men rushed forward, splitting into their natural teams as they went. All four groups had their own separate strategies. The die-hards wanted to sort out the bags quickly, having everyone pitch in, and then have everyone grab their own bag. The legacies wanted to dive in in an every-man-for-himself fashion. The escapees might have had a strategy if they weren’t standing to the sidelines, afraid to get hit by a wayward elbow. The drafters were picking out their bags like pick-pockets on a busy street. All five of them had their bags before the time was up.

            “Time,” Ian called. Eight men had their bags. The rest were still sprawled out over the pile, which was half a mess and half in perfect army-straight lines. Ian said, “Throw the bags back in.” He stepped forward and buried the bags that had already been uncovered. He ruined the lines that the die-hards had made. “Go.”

            Two minutes later, Ian said, “That was worse than last time. You boys need a little more time?” A mix of answers met his question. Everyone with different answers glared at each other. “If I could give you more time to get away when Charlie attacks, I’d give you more time here. Go again.”

            The scramble resumed. All strategy seemed to have been abandoned in the race for the bags. Two minutes passed and then it passed again. After ten rounds, Ian stopped the timer and looked to the sky with a laugh.

            “You’re strategy is shit,” he said as he kicked the bags back into the pile. “You don’t know what you’re doing or how to do it. You don’t take instruction, you don’t follow strategy, and you don’t work like a goddamn team.”

            “Maybe we should play differently,” a voice suggested. “Everyone who gets their own bag can stop playing.”

            “That’s not the point of the exercise,” Ian snapped. He scanned the group for the person who had spoken, but whoever it was blended in. A few men were rubbing their hands together and goosebumps stood out on their bare legs. The tops of their boots were beginning to chafe deep red lines into their shins. Ian sighed heavily. “Go again.”

            The same disaster ensued until, halfway through, Ian called, “STOP!”

            All the soldiers froze as his shout broke down into a string of curse words worse than what most of the men in the group were used to. He turned on the group’s shocked faces and saw only one smile in response –Mickey’s. He focused on his face for a moment, letting that amused smile steady him, and then turned back to the group as a whole.

            “Can someone please tell me what the point of this exercise is?” Ian asked.

            “To get our bags.”

            “To meet the time limit.”

            “To learn to work under pressure.”

            “To torture us.”

            “Did I _say_ you could all talk at once?” Ian snapped. Several mouths closed over the beginnings of words. Lips pressed into thin lines and gazes shot to the ground. “You,” Ian said, pointing to one of the die-hards. He was scrawny and bright haired, with large and nervous eyes. “Name?”

            “D-d-denny.”

            “Last name, soldier.”

            “Barber, sir.”

            Ian nodded. “Barber. What is the point of this exercise?”

            “I-I-I don’t know, sir.”

            “Sure you do.”

            “N-n-no, sir, I-”

            “Barber,” Ian said sharply. “I’m going to have to ask you to swallow that stammer.  You’re a good soldier. Signed up all on your own. I’m assuming you didn’t do that without looking into any army practices, did you?”

            Denny took a long moment before speaking. Even then, when he opened his mouth there was silence for a long time. “No, sir. I looked up army practices before coming, sir.”

            “Good. So tell me, what’s the point of this exercise?”

            “To... show us that we have to work as a team?”

            “Is that a question, soldier?”

            “No?”

            “No?”

            “No, sir?”

            Ian gave up and shifted his gaze. “This exercise is about teamwork.” Ian pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it. The smoke coiled into the late morning air. It was the only spot of heat in the field and it warmed only his lips. “It’s about working together. You are one unit. You will be sent into battle together. You’ll be expected to work as one at the snap of your lieutenant’s fingers or you will die. And I’m not going to be there to yell at you until you get it right.

            “You can hate everyone here. Even yourself. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you like anyone that you go into battle with. But I’m going to have to insist that you find it within yourself to give a shit if they die. Because if you don’t, you’re all coming back with flags over your eyes.” He paused for a moment and then took a step back. “Go again.”

            It took three more rounds before everyone had their bags in hand when the timer went off. And even then, success was mostly attributed to some of the drafters grabbing duffle bags and hurling them towards people they recognized. Or yelling out names and then hurling duffle bags at them. Either way, more than one person ended up flat on their back with their duffle bag weighing them down.

            “Put on some pants,” Ian said. “Go get lunch.”


	6. Chapter 6

Mickey was a mess by dinner time. He had read somewhere that after working out the soreness wasn’t supposed to kick in until the next day. That, he concluded, was a lie. One of the other drafters sat down beside him, sniffed and then shifted away.

            Avoiding the showers wasn’t going to be an option for much longer, but Mickey wasn’t sure he could handle it tonight. His stomach buzzed in a weird way from the scent of musky sweat and he flinched at every accidental brush of someone’s hand. His thoughts were racing in directions he had road blocked, but it was hard for the police to outrun a bullet.

            “Milkovich,” someone said.

            Mickey looked up. One of the guys at his table with chocolate eyes and hair to match was looking at him with a quirked smile. His name –if he remembered it right from all the shouts Ian had directed his way– was Wells.

            “You in for a game tonight?” Wells asked.

            “Game?” Mickey replied. “If you’re going to put me through that fucking duffle bag shit again-”

            Wells laughed. “Nah. Cards.”

            Mickey considered it. “I don’t have any money.”

            “Play for cigarettes.”

            Mickey nodded and Wells smiled before going back to his food.

***

            Cigar smoke floated around in the tent like a storm cloud waiting to strike. Mickey chewed on the end of his, tapping his fingers against his cards as he watched the others scanning their hands. Wells’ hand clenched non-existent hair, as if he was used to more of it being there like some sort of comfort blanket. Ashton was moving his jaw like he was chewing tobacco, despite having declined a cigar. Fleming’s foot was tapping hard against the ground. Mickey was pretty sure it was to the tune of _I Love Lucy’s_ theme song _._ And then there was Berns, still as a statue except for the odd twitch of his left eye.

            “Call,” Mickey said. He threw two cigarettes into the middle of the rickety wooden table. He had no idea where it had come from, just that when he asked Wells had winked and offered no further explanation. He assumed it was stolen. From where, he had no idea, but a burning need to know.

            Berns called. Ashton hesitated and then called as well. Wells folded. Fleming called without hesitation and his foot came to a standstill.

            Mickey raised. Ashton folded.

            Mickey watched the other two. Berns was frozen in place. Even the movement he made to throw in the cigarettes was mechanical. But his eye twitch was slowly shifting in the direction of the hidden card in the run. Mickey bent the tops of the cards in his straight. Fleming folded.

            Berns laid down his cards. Two aces.

            There was another Ace in the run.

            Wells let out a soft whistle and grabbed the card that was facedown. He looked between the two of them. “You ready, boys?”

            Mickey nodded and Berns made no response.

            “Looks like Milkovich has got you beat.”

            All five of them turned towards the new voice. Ian stood at the tent flap, blowing cigarette smoke into the already polluted air. He smiled. “By all means, turn over the card. You can’t actually get in more trouble by finishing the game.”

            Wells flipped over the card. Ace of Spades.

            “Congratulations, Berns,” Ian said. Then he gestured for them to get up and stepped out of the tent.

            A second later, they could hear him yelling. Mickey got up and followed him out into the campground. The half moon was waning and pulling the light from the stars down with it. Men began to scramble from their tents, rubbing their eyes and reflexively flattening ghost hair.

            “Follow me,” Ian called.

            Mickey waited for the poker group to get out before heading after the others. A few men had broken out into a light jog, trying to catch up to Ian  in the blackness of the night. Most of them were back in the underwear and t-shirt uniform of the morning, but others had taken a moment to throw on pants and a jacket. Mickey was in a muscle shirt, still running off the heat of the tightly packed tent.

            “Normal thing,” someone said.

            Mickey glanced in the direction of the voice, but saw no one who was talking. Pieces of conversations floated towards him as his group trudged on in silence. “Fucking asshole waking us up...” “Regular hazing ritual this turned out to be...” “If I wanted to be up this late, I could’ve stayed in school...” “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

            And then, finally, something that didn’t sound like the complaint of some spoiled rich bitch. The words came from right behind him, muffled only slightly by the cigar still hanging from Wells’ lips.

            “Heard from my brother that he’s a little off his rocker,” Wells whispered. “Not big on regulations or shit like that. Shot one of his last guys to make a point.”

            “Shut the fuck up,” Mickey replied. He glanced back and added, “He wouldn’t be in the army if he was batshit fucking crazy.”

            Wells shrugged. “It’s what I heard.”

            Mickey shook his head and kept walking. He had a good enough map of the camp in his head to notice that they were heading towards the bathrooms. He slowed as they came near. The rest of the men were huddled before the wooden structure, whispering and shivering.

            Ian reappeared at the front of the group carrying two buckets filled with soapy water. His pockets were filled to the brim with toothbrushes of every colour. Mickey blinked, sure he was imagining the whole thing, but then Ian dropped the buckets and the sound jarred the cigar smoke out of his brain.

            “You’re going to clean this bathroom. Polish it until it shines.”

            “With what?” someone asked

            Ian dropped the toothbrushes onto the ground with a smile.

            “Fuck you,” someone shouted.

            “Why?” someone else asked.

            “Why?” Ian replied. He crossed his arms. “Any and every army infraction is punishable as your drill sergeant sees fit. Any and every army infraction is punished on a group basis.”

            “Again... why?”

            Ian’s smile quirked into a smirk. “What did we spend all morning learning about, cadet?”

            “Teamwork?”

            “Teamwork. Team responsibility. Army infractions are a team responsibility, even if you were fast asleep when they happened.” Ian stepped forward and clapped the nearest candidate on the back. “Get scrubbing.”

            The grumbling started up anew as Ian stepped away. People bent to pick up the toothbrushes and two men grabbed the buckets to bring them inside. The tiny doorway was tested by the sheer bulk of everyone pushing through it. Heavy army boots and bare feet graced the tile floors.

            Mickey grabbed a yellow toothbrush and hung back for a moment, waiting for everyone to go inside. He glanced back then. Ian was standing there, watching him, and he inclined his head towards the bathroom without a word.

            “Why didn’t you give us up?” Mickey asked. “They’ll be asking for blood.”

            “Southside rules,” Ian replied.

            Mickey stared at him for a moment, nodded and then headed inside.

            It was a mess of voices and scrubbing and soapy water running across the floor in rivulets. Mickey dipped his toothbrush in the nearest bucket and brought it towards the nearest patch of untouched tile. He worked in silence, apart from his partners in crime, and slowly shifted closer to the bucket of water.

            As best he could without being caught or soaked, he wiped away the grime from his body with the soapy water and the toothbrush. The sheen of sweat slipped away from his arms and he tried to make sure he smelled a little better. Then he went back to scrubbing the tiles like nothing had happened and slowly gravitated back towards where the group of drafters was working.


	7. Chapter 7

The smile on Ian’s lips was involuntary as he watched his men stumble out of their tents. Most of them had done a good job of pulling themselves together –the only sign of sleep deprival was the deep purple circles under their eyes– but others came out half-dressed, barely even realizing that they were supposed to be wearing jackets.

            “Rough night?” Ian asked when the group had assembled. There was some grumbling, but nothing distinctive. All of the men were eyeing him like he was a caged animal. He licked the smile off of his lips and nodded once. “Good. I’m sure you understand the rule. The sun is up, so you’re up.” More grumbling, the shifting of feet to regain weary balance, and more looks of mistrust followed. Ian cleared his throat. “Today you’re starting your run. First day, so you only have to do one lap.”

            There was a long stretch of silence. Then, from the back of the group, Mickey yelled, “Child’s play.”

            Ian met his eyes. Mickey nodded once, silently signalling that he had his back. With a smile forming at the corners of his lips, Ian replied, “Good to hear. I’ll expect to see you at the front of the pack, Milkovich.”

            Mickey’s hand moved on reflex, flipping Ian off. He hid it quickly, his hand clenching into a fist, and the smile faded from his eyes. For a second, the fear of some of the other men echoed in Mickey’s blue eyes and Ian’s heart shuddered like an elevator that had forgotten the floor it was supposed to stop on.

            “Get running,” Ian said. His voice was less steady than he liked. As the men began to jog away, he lit a cigarette and took a long, steadying drag. He tried hard not to smoke too fast, but he couldn’t yet feel the nicotine in his veins. He was chain smoking by the time the men were halfway around the camp.

            The men came around the bend, sprinting down the final stretch. Ian smiled at the sight of Mickey, clearly out of breath, near the front of the pack. He was fighting with another guy, the two of them pulling at clothing and trying to trip each other in order to be first in line. Ian scanned his head for the name. Wells. The guy kept running a hand over his forehead, keeping ghost hair out of his face.

            Five feet from the flagpole, Wells shoved Mickey and Mickey lost his balance. He twisted into a slide, and his toe crossed the finish line seconds before Wells’. A cloud of dust plumed in the air, causing everyone behind them to cough as they bent over to catch their breath.

            “Not bad,” Ian said. “At least you all made it.”

            Ian offered his hand to Mickey, who took one look at it and then got up on his own. Ian took a step back as Mickey brushed the dirt off of his hands and clothes. He was a mess but, Ian noticed, a slightly lesser mess than he had been the day before.

            “Now drop and give me fifty.”

            The men stared back at him blankly. Ian said nothing else, barely even blinked, until the first soldier got down on the ground and started doing push-ups. Slowly the others followed, counting under their breath. Ian led them through several other exercises, waiting until the sun was high in the sky and beating down on them before telling them to go get breakfast.

            He waited for them to start walking. They split back into their groups naturally as they went. Wells was looking back, past Ian, and then, with a shrug, he continued on his way.

            “Hey.”

            Ian started at the voice and turned to see Mickey standing behind him.

            “You know that blood I said they were looking for?” Mickey said. “They’ve decided they want yours.”

            Ian exhaled a laugh. “I’m their sergeant.”

            “I don’t think they care.”

            “I can take care of myself, cadet.”

            Mickey stared at him for a long moment and then nodded. “Whatever you say, sir.” Then he walked after the other soldiers.


	8. Chapter 8

“LEFT!”

            Mickey turned. He was holding onto a plastic gun, practicing how to hold it so it wouldn’t ‘go off’ accidentally while he was marching. He was also practicing marching, something that made him a little more sympathetic to the guys around him whispering about how much they would like to murder the sergeant.

            The sun was hot but the air was cold, causing every soldier in the clearing to feel like they were stuck in a temperature purgatory. There was another command, another turn, and a loud yell. Someone had hit someone else in the face with a gun and now Ian was calling for them to run laps.

            Mickey rolled his eyes and dropped the plastic gun. Wells hit him on the back on his way by and Mickey quickly flipped him off. He stayed where he was, still in the middle of the field, waiting for Ian to catch his eye.

            “You should be running, cadet.”

            “I seem to remember being told that we only had to run one lap today.”

            “Do you remember being told that you’re punished as a group?”

            “Yeah, don’t think that’s working. Not really bringing everyone together. It just makes them hate you.”

            Ian swallowed and for a moment, Mickey regretted the words. But the look in Ian’s eyes was gone a second later, and he was gesturing towards the track. “You need to catch up, Milkovich.” Then, he added, “Come by later. We’ll talk.”

            Mickey hesitated for a moment, nodded and jogged off.

***

            Ian’s tent was little more than a smoke cloud. One of the flaps had been pinned back, welcoming Mickey in, but all the smoke swirled beneath the green canvas top. Mickey glanced over the walls as he stepped in, smirking slightly at the dried and stained pin-up calendar. He took a step towards it, glancing at Ian as he did so, and said, “You got a favourite month?”

            “July.”

            Mickey glanced towards him and then gently flipped the pages. He let out a low whistle. The girl, a brunette with long legs and a big bosom, was lying out half-naked on the wing of an army bomber. Her tongue was stuck to her top lip and one of her eyes was frozen in a wink. Mickey cleared his throat, feigning mild discomfort in his pants.

            He dropped the page. “What’d you want to talk about?”

            Ian blew out a line of smoke and then offered the cigarette to Mickey. He took it and pressed it between his lips. It tasted different than he was used to, as if Ian’s saliva lingered there and the taste of him was hot against the paper. Mickey rolled it between his lips for longer than necessary before taking a drag.

            He could feel Ian’s eyes on him, watching the line of the cigarette in his mouth. He took it out quickly, handing it back as he blew out the smoke. Their fingers touched momentarily and, in the shock of the moment, Mickey nearly dropped the cigarette. Ian didn’t even seem to notice.

            “I told you,” Ian replied finally. “I like to check in on the drafters.”

            “Well, I’m doing just fine, so if that’s all-”

            “Why are you looking out for me?”

            Mickey looked at him. He was caught by the ocean of Ian’s eyes and swallowed. He tried to shrug, but the motion was forced. His fingers itched for something to do and, when Ian offered the cigarette again, Mickey pounced on it.

            “Southside rules,” Mickey replied, taking a drag. Ian cocked an eyebrow. “You know, we’ve got to look out for each other. And those guys...”

            “It’s weird that it’s all of them,” Ian said. “I’m used to it in the first few weeks from the drafters and the escapees. Those guys generally don’t like me or the way I run my unit, but the others respect me.”

            “I didn’t say they don’t respect you. They just think your batshit crazy.”

            Once again Mickey wished there was a way for him to eat his words. He handed back the cigarette, hoping the nicotine might steady the look of fear in his sergeant’s eyes. It didn’t seem to do anything.

            “I don’t want to die,” Mickey said suddenly.

            Ian looked up at him. The words had had their intended effect –Ian no longer looked ready to curl up into a ball and never come out– but now Mickey had to explain them. He swallowed, ran a hand over his mouth, and shrugged. Ian watched him, patiently, letting the cigarette burn down between his long, agile fingers.

            “You wanted to know why I’m looking out for you? Southside rules, no Southside rules, if those guys decide they don’t want you around... we’re all gonna die,” Mickey said. “And I don’t know what the fuck I have to go back to, if I’ll have anything to go back to at all, but... I’m not ready to die. I got a baby on the way and a sister to walk down the aisle and I can’t... I can’t die. So I need you to know that those guys aren’t happy with you. And I need you to fix it. Because you’re the only one trying to make sure I don’t get my skull caved in by some commie freak.”

            “You got a baby on the way?”

            Mickey blinked. For a moment, he had no idea that those words had come out of his mouth at all. Then he nodded and said, “Yeah. Some whore claims it’s mine.”

            Nodding slowly, Ian took the last drag of the cigarette and dropped it on the floor of the tent. A pile of stubs sat at his feet, burying the soles of his boots. “You’ll meet your baby,” Ian said. “You have my word on that.”

            Mickey nodded.

            A long moment of silence followed. Ian’s impossible promise hung in the air like some greater power wishing they hadn’t yet cut the strings from their puppets. “You can go,” Ian said as he lit another cigarette.

            Mickey nodded again. He was still for a moment, wondering why a stone had settled in his gut and he wished he could take back the news he had shared. The baby probably wasn’t even his. It probably didn’t even exist. And yet Ian had promised Mickey would see it’s face and in that promise he read a sort of sadness he hadn’t known he shared.

            He stepped out of the tent, rubbing his fingers together as if there was a cigarette to turn there. He licked his lips. Ian’s taste was still on them. Mickey sucked in his lower lip, savouring the taste until it disappeared.

            Wells passed him and said with a wink, “Interrogation round two. Tell me you didn’t give away any trade secrets.”

            Mickey did his best to smile in response, but it felt flat on his lips. Wells walked on and Mickey went to his tent. Denny started talking as soon as he entered and Mickey let the words continue, despite his usual policy to shut the guy up as soon as possible. The words streaming out of his roommates lips stopped his thoughts from stringing themselves together and distracted him from the fuzzy feeling in his chest.


	9. Chapter 9

Ian was still staring at the open tent flap when Wells came in. He blinked at Wells’ half-sarcastic salute and nodded back. Wells easily took a seat on the end of the cot and asked the same question all the drafters asked.

            “Just checking in,” Ian replied.

            “Well, in that case, you should know the food in the cafeteria sucks,” Wells said. “And I’m not a big fan of the running. Or the marching. Or push-ups, sit-ups... anything with the word up in it, really. And-”

            “Shut up.”

            “I thought we were checking in.”

            Ian blew out a puff of smoke, not caring to deflect it from the soldier’s eyes. Wells waved it away calmly and leaned back so that his weight pressed against the tent wall. The two stared at each other for a long moment, as if they were entering their own personal Cold War, and then Ian took another drag on the cigarette.

            He’d had too many. That was the only explanation he could think of for the sinking weight in his chest and the odd echo of Mickey’s words in his ears. _I got a baby on the way._ A baby. A real, flesh and blood, screaming infant that was half his and half some woman’s. Which meant that he had sex with a woman. Which was something Ian should have expected from him anyways.

            Ian coughed on the next drag, taking in too much smoke.

            Wells smirked. “Rookie move.”

            “I was thinking.”

            “About what you’re going to do to me?”

            Ian almost dropped the cigarette. He glanced towards the young man sitting on the end of his bed. Wells’ face was impassive, blank as a board, except for the slightest quirk in the right corner of his mouth. Dark brown eyes held Ian’s gaze evenly and this time, Ian did drop the cigarette. He used the heel of his boot to put it out before taking a step towards Wells.

            “Cadet,” Ian said. “Your insolence, while annoying, is not cause for punishment.”

            “Too bad.” Wells shrugged and got up. He took a step towards the open tent flap, still talking, but Ian wasn’t listening. He was watching the curve of the man’s hips, the easy smile on his smooth lips, and the muscles rippling just under his clothes.

            “Maybe it is,” Ian said, suddenly.

            Wells turned. He was at the exit of the tent and, with one smooth motion, he let the flap of the tent fall closed. “Good to hear.”

***

            Wells left right after and Ian was glad he hadn’t had to shoo him from his tent. He had had that problem before with men who wanted to cuddle, who thought it was a great idea to set their mental clocks for four in the morning and just sneak out before anyone woke up. In other words, he had a knack for choosing the ones with low libidos and lower IQs. _And the straight ones, apparently_ , he thought as he caught Mickey moving through the sea of recruits.

            Mickey met his eyes for a moment and then looked back down. He was wandering through the tables in the mess hall. They were working with plastic guns –the goal was to label all the pieces correctly and then reassemble the whole thing. Mickey had finished in under five minutes. He hadn’t even waited for the labels to be handed out.

            Ian had told him to help out the others, but best he could tell, Mickey was simply trying to look busy. He paused for a moment next to Wells and Ian watched the two of them closely. Wells smiled his crooked smile, looking at Mickey in a way that wasn’t all that unfamiliar to Ian. His stomach twisted, but he wasn’t sure which of the two he was jealous for.

            One of the other guys got his gun together. The second of the group. His immediate reaction was to raise the rifle to his shoulder and start making shooting noises. He swung the fake gun around in a circle, pointing it at anyone and everyone he didn’t like, and yelling point values over the chatter of the company.

            “Miller,” Ian shouted. His voice silenced all the others. He hadn’t even moved his eyes from Mickey, whose hand was on the barrel of Wells’ gun. As soon as Mickey noticed Ian looking, he moved his hand and then made a face, as if to ask what Ian was looking at. Ian swallowed a smile as Mickey’s hand twitched, ready to flip him off.

            Ian finally looked at Miller, who still had his gun up on his shoulder. “What did I say about the guns?” Ian asked.

            “To label and assemble them.”

            “You remember any other instructions?”

            Miller shook his head.

            “Well, there weren’t any,” Ian replied. “Except, maybe, the painfully obvious instruction that you not aim a gun at your fellow soldiers.”

            “It’s fake.”

            “It is. But your first instinct is to raise it against your friends? The only men who are going to have your back out there? When you get a working gun in your hand, you’re telling me that’s no longer going to be the case? What if your finger slips? What if the safety’s not working?”

            “It’s a fake-”

            His words cut off as Ian snatched the gun from his hand. He turned it around, jammed the barrel into Miller’s chest, and pushed him up against the wall. Ian’s finger pressed against the trigger. Nothing happened.

            “It’s a fake gun,” Ian repeated. Then he turned it upside down and pressed it against Miller’s chest. “But you forgot to put the fucking safety on it.”

            Miller took the gun, shaking.

            Ian stepped away from him and looked around at the group. “Not one of you managed to mention what Miller was doing. He went on for three minutes. Not one of you mentioned to him that he forgot a piece of his gun. He could have killed you all.” Ian looked around the room. A few soldiers had stopped listening to him and were having their own conversations. Others were sighing, holding back yawns, or counting the knots in the wood flooring. “Fine. Ignore me. I’m just the man who trains you, overreacting because someone wants to play with a toy gun. It’s not a big deal.”

            Ian paused, scanning the recruits evenly. “You’re not playing with toys anymore. This isn’t a game anymore. You might have grown up playing soldier in your backyard; constructing foxholes out of garbage cans and making enemy shooters out of your siblings. I did it. Me and my brother. Every single day until this country actually went to war and it stopped being a fucking game. Now, maybe you didn’t get that. Maybe you kept playing your games while the war was waged. I don’t care if you did or not. I care that you’re still playing here. The minute you stepped off that bus, this stopped being a game you could play.

            “You’re going to war. You’re going to see people die right in front of you. You’re going to kill people. You might get shot. You might die. And none of you seem to fucking care!”

            Ian slammed his fist on the nearest table. Fake gun parts scattered across the table and onto the floor. All eyes were on him now, wide and unblinking. Ian swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried to find his centre again. His fingers curled, itching for a cigarette.

            “If you’re scared, you should be,” Ian said. “I’m not here to lie to you. I’m here, as I have said a thousand times before, to make sure that you don’t die out there. And I can’t do that if you don’t take this seriously. Do you understand me?”

            There was a smattering of answers and a few men nodded their heads.

            “I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

            “SIR, YES, SIR.”

            Ian rolled his eyes and stormed out of the room, cursing under his breath. He could hear everyone talking behind him. They said he lost his mind. He was gone. They should call someone. He had crossed a line. He wasn’t their sergeant. He needed to go.

            “What the fuck was that?”

            Ian whirled around and stopped short of raising his fist. Mickey had followed him out into the clearing. Ian closed his eyes, every inch of him shaking, and took a deep breath. “That was my job, Milkovich.”

            “That’s your job?” Mickey replied. “To make big speeches and then storm out?”

            “I don’t have to explain myself to you, cadet.”

            “Yes, you do.”

            Ian glared at him. “Common enemy,” he said. “You give people a common enemy and they band together to fight it. And all of you are split into your little cliques like a bunch of high school girls, so I thought maybe I would help you get out of that headspace.”

            “Pretty sure the common enemy’s supposed to be Charlie.”

            Silence stretched between them. Ian was trying to still his body, but it was hard with the butterflies buzzing around in his stomach. He sniffed hard. The cold was getting to him, causing goosebumps to run up his bare arms. He reached for a cigarette.

            “They’re gonna get you fired.”

            “Maybe they should,” Ian replied. He took a long drag and let the smoke blend in with the grey clouds overhead. He laughed. “Getting me fired is a common goal. It’ll make a team out of them. And then maybe they’ll get some lazy asshole who thinks you can teach combat by sitting around in a classroom watching black and white videotapes. It’ll make them happy.”

            “Maybe you forgot the part where I don’t want to die.”

            Ian shrugged, “You’ll die or you won’t die. I can’t help that.”

            “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

            “Too much.”Ian licked his lips and then headed past Mickey, back towards the mess hall. He opened the door and yelled, “Five laps. Now.” Then he stepped to the side and watched as the entire company jogged past him. He smiled at every dirty look he got and barely even flinched when Wells’ tapped him on the ass.

            He glanced towards Mickey, standing frozen in the middle of the stampede, and gestured that he should go too. This time the itch of Mickey’s fingers won out. He flipped Ian off and then headed off after the others. Ian didn’t even try to contain his laugh.


	10. Chapter 10

“Let’s play poker tonight.”

            Mickey looked up from his dinner, a frown already firmly planted between his eyebrows. “Do you learn nothing?” he asked.

            Wells smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a feeling we won’t get busted this time.”

            “Why’s that?”

            Wells shrugged, winked, and stuffed half of his potatoes in his mouth. Mickey watched him for a moment before saying, “Sure. You’re tent?”

            Wells nodded.

            Mickey couldn’t find it in himself to be as cool about the prospect of cleaning the bathrooms in the middle of the night again. Although it would give him another chance to wash up. He stared down at his food, swirling it half-heartedly, before an idea sparked in his mind.

            Mickey got up from the bench and walked through the mess hall. He passed Ian’s usual table, but it was empty except for a tray of half-eaten food. Mickey stuck a finger in the soup and flinched back immediately. It was still burning hot.

            He glanced around the cafeteria and then took the quickest route to the outside –through the kitchen. He pushed open the swinging door and immediately heard pots bubbling over. It was abandoned as far as he could see. He weaved through the stainless steel appliances until he came to the sink at the back and saw Ian sitting next to it. He had a bowl in his lap and a spoon in his hands.

            “What are you doing?” Mickey asked.

            Ian looked up. “Group punishment, remember?” Mickey gave him a blank look and Ian smiled. “No dessert.”

            An involuntary smile spread across Mickey’s lips. He took a step forward. “So, what? You’re just going to eat that entire bowl all by yourself?”

            “Yup.”

            Mickey watched silently for a moment and then made a move for the pudding bowl. Ian was faster, moving it out of the way as Mickey careened into him. His hands came down on Ian’s legs. His muscles tensed under his fingers and the pudding bowl tilted slightly, dripping onto the counter beside him.

            Mickey moved first. He grabbed the edge of the bowl and swung away. He dipped a finger into the pudding and then licked it off. “Not bad,” he said.

            “You’re asking for more laps.”

            “Make me.”

            Ian laughed and then slid off the counter. Mickey took a step back. Holding his hands up in surrender, Ian approached and dipped his spoon into the bowl. After slowly slurping off the pudding –an action that had Mickey mesmerized for a moment– Ian said, “So why are you back here?”

            “Looking for you.”

            “Why? I usually don’t have all the pudding.”

            Mickey snorted. “Nah, I was just wondering. You got plans tonight?”

            Ian frowned. “What kind of plans can I have here?”

            “You want to come to poker night?”

            Ian bit back the smile forming on his lips. “You can’t gamble on army property. All card games for money or cigarettes are prohibited.”

            “Well, I’m not sure I can get the guys to go for strip.”

            Mickey regretted the words as soon as Ian’s eyes widened. His stomach churned as his cheeks went red hot. He was starting to wonder if there was anything he could say to Ian without immediately wanting to take it back. Averting his eyes, he cleared his throat hard, and then added, “It’s gonna happen and Wells said you wouldn’t bust us, so...” Mickey shrugged. “I thought maybe that meant you were up for a game. Might help them like you more.”

            “The drafters aren’t exactly the ones I’m worried about.”

            “Considering they’re the ones with the most criminal experience and the least to lose,” Mickey said, “I would worry about them first.”

            Ian seemed to consider this for a moment before he nodded. “No gambling though.”

            “Sure,” Mickey agreed, rolling his eyes.

            Ian laughed and took the pudding bowl away from Mickey. Mickey managed to dip his finger in one last time before Ian stepped away and Mickey walked backwards out of the kitchen, licking the chocolate off his finger.

***

            “Game is follow the queen, aces are high, jacks are wild,” Wells said. He was shuffling the cards like a kindergartener with a will to bend every single one. He kept talking until the tent flap opened and Ian walked in. Wells glanced from Ian to Mickey with one eyebrow raised, his silent question heard by everyone around the table.

            “Jesus,” Ian said. The other three men had frozen in their places, cigars hanging from their mouths. Wells kept shuffling the cards and Mickey patted the seat to his right. Ian slipped into it and then grabbed the cards from Wells. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to shuffle?”

            Wells smirked as Ian spread the cards in a fan, swept them back into a pile, and then shuffled them in a bridge. Mickey watched as his long fingers played across the backs of the cards, moving them fluidly, until he tapped the deck against the table and held them out to Wells.

            “Follow the queen, right?” Ian said.

            Wells nodded and started dealing the cards. Mickey offered Ian a cigar. The room quickly filled with smoke and everyone gradually loosened to the idea of their drill sergeant being there. Ian even managed to make a few jokes that didn’t fall completely flat, though more than once Mickey had to shake his head in response to an attempt.

            “How’d you get so good at this anyways?” Berns grumbled as Ian pulled the pile of cigarettes towards him. They were the first words that the man had said all night, possibly the first words he had said since arriving at the camp.

            Ian smiled. “Simple. I hate to lose cigarettes.”

            “You’re a fucking addict, man.”

            “Don’t tell the army.”

            Mickey blew smoke out from between his teeth. He could feel Ian’s eyes on him, hot against his face, and the familiar feeling Mickey had spent his whole life trying to step on came back with a vengeance.

            He let his smile fade and coughed on the smoke. He waited until Ian’s eyes were off of him before taking a deep breath to steady himself. The thrumming of his heart against his chest was impossible to control, but the tingling of his body calmed with another puff of the cigar.

            The game wrapped up a few hands later. The others got to their feet, only Mickey, Wells, and Ian lingering. Wells stretched his arms with a yawn and said, “I should be getting to bed.”

            Ian yawned in response. “Wake up’s in a couple hours.”

            Mickey moved first. His chair scraped back from the table, and he raised his hand in a half-assed attempt at a wave goodbye. Part of him waffled over the idea that Ian was his guest and he should walk him out. But another part of him preferred to run out into the night, afraid of exactly what walking Ian back to his tent would mean.

            “Goodnight,” he said. He got half nods from both men in response. Hesitating only a moment longer, Mickey waved again and then stepped out into the night air.

            For once he was glad it was winter. The breeze was sharp and revitalizing. It froze all the blood in his veins and gave him a reason for the blush on his cheeks. He took the long way back to his tent and was disappointed to find Denny asleep. He could have really used the distraction of the boy’s squeaky voice.


	11. Chapter 11

“If I could pay a man not to be straight...” Wells said.

            Ian laughed.

            “Like you weren’t thinking it.”

            “Turn around and shut up.”

***

            The mail truck came in as the men were halfway through their morning laps. It came to a stop beside Ian and the soldier leaped out of the truck with a smile on his face. “Good morning, sergeant,” he said. “How’s the new group?”

            “They hate me,” Ian replied.

            “So you’re right on schedule?”

            Ian faked a smile and gestured towards the bags in the back of the truck. “Any chance the first round of letters is in there?”

            The soldier nodded and handed over the bag. Ian opened it up, grabbed the pile he recognized the first name from, and started flipping through the stack. He mentally checked off the names as he went, making sure that every man under his command had a letter. He had three names left when he got to the last two letters in the pile. His stomach sank as he left one name unchecked.

            “Thanks,” Ian said.

            “You’re missing one,” the soldier said. He pulled a loose letter off the side of the bag and, for a brief second, Ian didn’t feel like throwing up. But then he saw the envelope was addressed to him in Fiona’s messy, rushed script.

            He squeezed the envelope tight in his hand. He could feel the bunched up papers –a different page from everyone at home. With a smile, he stepped away from the mail truck and waved goodbye to the soldier driving it. Then he turned to watch his men come around the final lap.

            They dragged to a stop. A couple of them dropped to the ground right away, starting their push-ups without any prodding. Others waited to catch their breath before stumbling to the dirt like their drunken feet couldn’t hold them any longer. A handful just stood, waiting for a command. Ian glared at them. With slow realization, they started doing their push-ups.

            Those that finished first settled down to sit on the ground. A few of them yelled half-assed, insulting encouragements at their friends. Ian smiled. The group was happy to wait together, pushing each other to get better, before heading off to breakfast. The last man finished his final sit-up and took a deep breath.

            No one moved. A dozen or so eyes were on the man, but no one pressured him to catch his breath faster or get to his feet. The air was warmer now as the dregs of winter floated away. Everyone was hot from the run and the breeze was welcome. Idle conversations popped up among the group as they readied themselves to head into the mess hall. A couple men stood, then others, and someone helped up the man who was the last to finish. The whole group turned towards the mess hall.

            “Good job,” Ian said. Every pair of eyes glanced his way, some of them wary of his words. He did his best to smile and waved the stack of letters in the air. “I know you’re all desperate to hear from your families, but this week has been riddled with infractions.”

            “You’re not going to give us the letters?” someone asked.

            “I’ll give them to you,” Ian said. “But you’re going to have to work a little harder for them. Two more laps.”

            For a moment, no one moved. Then someone split off from the back of the group and started running. Slowly the group dispersed, heading around the track in a cloud of dust. Only Mickey remained where he was standing, watching the others start off with a small smirk on his face.

            “You’re not gonna go?” Ian asked.

            “Who’s gonna write to me?” Mickey replied. He approached Ian and held out his hand. “You got a smoke?”

            Ian pulled out a box of cigarettes and handed one to Mickey. Mickey held it between his lips, patting his pockets for a light. Ian shook his head, pulled out his lighter, and gestured for Mickey to lean in. Cupping a hand around the tip of the cigarette, he clicked the lighter and waited for smoke to go up in the air.

            Mickey took a drag and the offered the cigarette to Ian. He took it, holding it in a hand for a second before putting it to his lips. It tasted of dirt and saliva, rough against the ridges of his tongue. When he blew out the smoke, Mickey took it from his hand without waiting and rested it between his lips.

            “You okay?” Ian asked. The only response he got was a look and an odd raise of the eyebrows. Ian added, “About the letter thing.”

            With a snort, Mickey said, “Come on. Like my dad’s gonna write me letters about how much he misses me? Like he’s gonna let my mom or my sister waste money on paper instead of booze?”

            “Still.”

            “My brothers didn’t get any letters. Why would I?”

            Ian felt the weight of his own letter heavy in his back pocket. He had an entire family writing to him, writing anything they could think to say, and scrounging together pennies to be able to buy stamps for such a big envelope. An entire family at the tip of his fingers, still waiting for him to come home and still worried that he wouldn’t, even though he was nowhere near the action. Ian didn’t even notice when Mickey offered the cigarette back to him.

            “I’m sorry,” Ian said.

            “Fuck off.”

            Mickey took back the offer and sucked in more smoke than his lungs should have been able to hold. Then he offered it back again, fingers shaking, as if there had been something missing from that last drag. Ian took it and tasted Mickey, harsh against the paper.

            “Poker was fun,” Ian said.

            Mickey laughed. “Not afraid you’ll get fired for it?”

            “You don’t seem like the kind to report me.”

            “Only because I don’t want a sleepy old geezer replacing you.”

            Ian almost choked on the smoke as he laughed. Mickey’s eyes were on the cigarette as Ian twirled it. He gave it back and Mickey brought it to his lips like an addict going for the bottle. And Ian had thought he had a smoking problem.

            The men were finishing up their second lap and Ian stepped away from Mickey. He started organizing the stack of letters, trying his best to sort it by the order that the men would come in. They ran up to him, bypassing the flagpole and technically not finishing the lap. Ian considered making them go back and run the last two feet, but was already handing out the first letter by the time he had worked out how to word the command.

            The pile diminished as every letter was snatched by desperate hands. Some men tore them open right there, pouring over the words while standing still or heading over to the mess hall. Others kept the letters clasped in their fists as they headed to breakfast. Every single one of them looked over the handwriting on the address and smiled, bit back tears, or simply ran their fingers over the blue or black letters. Gone a week and they were already falling to pieces to get to their families’ words.

            Ian handed off the last letter and then turned to Mickey. He was looking after the others, a glazed look in his eyes as his hands clenched, almost as if he had an imaginary letter of his own. Ian cleared his throat and, with a sniff, Mickey looked up at him.

            “Right, breakfast,” Mickey said.

            He started after the others but Ian grabbed his arm. He glanced after the men, then looked straight at Mickey. It took him a long moment to find the words that Mickey wouldn’t just brush off. Point blank saying ‘you don’t want to be in there right now’ didn’t seem like the right option.

            “I need help setting up the drill for today,” Ian bluffed. “The chef’ll bring us breakfast.”

            After a long hesitation, Mickey nodded. Ian smiled, turned away from the mess hall, and gestured for Mickey to follow him. He headed towards the storage shed and threw open the door.

            The small space was packed high with rickety tables, wooden chairs, and a cluttered mess of broken cots. Several tents were folded up and shoved into one corner, about a foot away from touching the roof. Locked boxes lined the side of the room, concealing real weaponry. The plastic guns sat in front of them; their boxes were plastic too and black instead of silver. Tires, collapsed rope walls, and wooden ramps filled the rest of the space.

            “Okay, we need to move the obstacle course out into the field,” Ian said.

            “Which would be...”

            Ian started pointing out things that needed to be moved. He immediately had to stop Mickey from trying to move the biggest ramp in the place all by himself. The two of them barely managed to get it out of the door and they shoved it to the very edge of the clearing.

            “It’s supposed to be in the middle,” Ian said as they stood staring at it.

            “Yeah, well, now it’s at end.”

            Ian laughed and headed after Mickey to the storage shed. The chef brought out their food and they took a break, sitting on the chairs as they stuffed eggs down their throats. Ian did his best to avoid heavy topics of conversation, no matter how much he wanted to push Mickey on the letter thing. He finished eating first and grabbed two tires, heading out to the clearing.

            When he got back, Mickey was still sitting down. There was a white envelope in his hands and several lined pages of paper were peeking out of it.

            “Sorry,” Mickey said. He got up and held the letter out, not even looking at Ian. “It fell out of your pocket.”

            “It’s okay.”

            “So, tires.”

            “Tires.”

            Mickey grabbed two of them and Ian stood still with the letters in his hand. He looked down at the writing as Mickey left. The tops of all the pages were lined up, only the first line of every letter visible. One after another, in increasingly terrible handwriting until the point where the last one was written in crayon, the words _I miss you. I love you. Come home soon._ were scrawled after the greeting.

            Ian blinked back the tears in his eyes and folded the envelope in half. He shoved it into his pocket, making sure to do up the button this time. His heart was in his stomach, but he no longer had the words to push Mickey on the issue. How was he supposed to tell Mickey he understood when it had been made clear to him that he didn’t? How was he supposed to get through to him when he had four people at home worried about him and Mickey had none?

            Mickey came back and silently grabbed more tires. Ian followed his lead. The silence between them was tense and steaming and Ian had no idea how to break it. They finished setting up the course and Mickey stepped back to stand before it as Ian took up his position in the middle of it.

            Their eyes stuck together over the line of tires.

            The other men emerged from the mess hall, silent, some of them still with their letters in their hands. Ian didn’t move his eyes from Mickey’s. He felt like he was holding on to an image, a ghost spot the sun had left in his way, and if he blinked it would be gone. He had nothing to say to Mickey, but he could look at him and hope that that was enough to let him know he wasn’t alone.

            Ian cleared his throat and started to introduce the drill.


	12. Chapter 12

_I miss you. I love you. Come home soon._

The words were branded on the backs of Mickey’s eyelids. He was tossing in his cot and making enough of a racket that Denny had woken from his death-like sleep to grumble something that would have been vaguely threatening had the other boy not been the first to give up on the obstacle course that day. Or the only one to fall in the tire track and start crying.

            _I miss you. I love you. Come home soon._

Mickey had read those words before on letters lied out in the middle of the street, pinned down by flowers. Written with the same conviction and hope. Four whole people who wanted Ian home just as desperately as they had wanted the other one home. His name escaped Mickey.

            Denny grumbled again and Mickey rolled out of bed. He pulled on his pants and ignored the question that Denny half-asked in his sleep. Mickey headed out into the cold night, rubbing at his bare arms and walking faster than he needed to. He needed to read those letters again. He needed to know what those words meant. The first time he had read them –standing in the middle of the street waiting for Mandy to hurry the fuck up– he had dismissed them as empty pleasantries. But seeing those words shake across the page now, going out to a different brother, excited the addict inside of Mickey.

            He made it to Ian’s tent and walked in, the words still on repeat in his mind. That is until he saw what was going on inside the tent. Then all his brain functioning seized to work as he saw Ian’s bare ass and another man in front of him, bent over the cot.

            Ian had looked up the moment the tent flap had opened. He moved away immediately. Mickey swore and looked away.

            “What the...” Wells trailed off as he looked up at Mickey. Then he shrugged unapologetically.

            “Mickey...” Ian said.

            Mickey turned around and was out of the tent. The words were gone from his mind, at least he had succeeded in that. But now a new image was burned there. He had half a mind to turn back around and yell at them. His father’s words were running across the image, hot in his mind, tingling on the tip of his tongue. _Faggots. Dirty homos. Scum of the earth._

He heard Ian call after him, but didn’t turn around. He was sure that the sergeant wouldn’t follow or yell louder. It was the middle of the night and Mickey was itching to make a scene. His entire body was shaking and there was a boulder on his chest making it hard to breath. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run around the camp until he puked. He wanted to curl up into a ball and die.

            Walking past his tent, he headed to the outskirts of the camp until he hit the track. He started running but his lungs resisted every breath. He fought hard against them and the pressure of moving his body. Every muscle protested movement until his legs gave up on him and he nearly face-planted on the ground.

            Mickey rested his head against the dirt and tried to take a deep breath. It caught in his throat and came out as a sob. A string of curses, a mix of his father’s words and his own thoughts, ran out of his mouth as he cried. All he wanted was to stop crying. All he wanted was to die.


	13. Chapter 13

Ian sat at a table in the mess hall and watched Mickey. He was still sitting at his table, silently playing with his food. He sat further from Wells than he usually did, but gave no sign that things had changed between the two of them.

            Ian’s foot tapped against the floor. He waited until Mickey got up and started for the buffet line again. Ian moved quickly, heading after him casually and taking a plate from the end of the line. Mickey didn’t so much as glance at him.

            “Milkovich,” Ian said. “Come by my tent tonight?”

            “Nope.”

            “Mi-”

            “As I understand it, this whole ‘being your friend thing’, it’s kinda optional,” Mickey snapped. He plopped a pile of mashed potatoes onto his plate. The silver spoon rattled against his dish. “And I’m done with it. I’m not coming by. I’m not talking to you. I’ll do my job and you do yours and we’ll just stay out each others’ fucking way, okay?”

            Ian paused for a moment and Mickey stepped away from the buffet table. “That wasn’t a request, soldier,” Ian said.

            Mickey turned around, a half smirk on his lips, and shrugged. “Write me up then.”

            Ian could have stood there staring after Mickey for the rest of the night. But a couple of men at the table nearest to them had already started glancing towards them and Ian knew the best solution was to not draw any attention to himself or Mickey. He moved almost immediately, heading back to his seat and his plate.

            He waited for dinner to be over and all the soldiers to head back to their tents. Then he walked through the maze to Mickey’s tent, clearing his throat loudly before coming in.

            He stepped through the tent flap to find Mickey smoking in bed and Denny in the middle of a sentence. The moment he was inside, Denny leapt to his feet, stood at attention, and saluted enthusiastically.

            “Good evening, sir. It’s a pleasure to see you and to have you in our tent. Is there anything we can do for you, sir?”

            “Barber,” Ian said, inclining his head. He glanced over at Mickey, lounging on his cot with a magazine spread across his lap. Nude girls. Classy. Ian looked back at Denny. “Can Milkovich and I have a minute alone, Barber?”

            “Of course, sir. I can do that, sir. A minute or more than a minute or should I-”

            “Just find something else to do for a while, Barber.”

            Denny nodded, saluted again, and dashed out of the tent.

            Ian snorted, shook his head, and looked back at Mickey. Mickey hadn’t moved a muscle other than to flip the page of the magazine. His eyes moved across the page, no smile on his lips, and Ian had the sneaking suspicion that he was actually reading the articles instead of looking at the pictures. He cleared his throat. Mickey didn’t respond.

            “Milkovich, we have to talk,” Ian said. No response. “Or I’ll talk. I’m sorry that I was otherwise occupied when you came to see me last night. I try to be more available to all of my men and-”

            “You’re kidding, right?” Mickey had slid the magazine off his legs. He was letting the cigarette burn without taking any drags and he held it close, as if he was afraid holding it out any further would mean Ian taking it.

            “I’m trying to have a conversation.”

            “About what?”

            “About whatever it was that you wanted to talk about last night.”

            Mickey smiled, licked his lips to hide it, and then let it out again. He laughed. “You’re fucking shameless.”

            “I’m not-”

            “You were fucking Wells,” Mickey said. “You weren’t _otherwise occupied,_ you were having homo sex in your tent like it was any other night. You know fags aren’t allowed in the army?”

            “Really? It’s never come up,” Ian said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. His nervousness about the conversation had faded into an unsettling anger between his ribs. “You want to talk about army policy? We can talk about army policy. Technically, yes, who I fuck disqualifies me from serving this country. I do it anyways.”

            “You’re not allowed to.”

            “And what are you going to do about that? Write a letter to my supervisor? Get me kicked out? You’re welcome to. Go right ahead,” Ian challenged. “But know that your next drill sergeant is going to be twice my age, twice as tough, and he’s not going to give half a shit about you as a person. He’s going to train you to go out there and die for the sake of your country. He won’t care if you come back.”

            “I don’t want you to care if I come back.”

            Ian paused, the rage bursting against his chest. His hands curled into fists. “You think I’m into homophobic assholes?” he asked. “Get the fuck over yourself. It’s my goddamned job to take care of you.”

            “I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

            “You need someone.”

            Mickey sat upright and scoffed. “Haven’t you been telling me I have all the men in the platoon? That they’re my family? You’re sending us off to die in a few months. I don’t fucking need _you_.”

            Ian swallowed. “Does that mean you’re turning me in?”

            “Maybe.”

            “Maybe?”

            Mickey was silent for a moment and then he shook his head. “Fag or not, you’re still my best chance of getting out of this shit alive.”

            “Meaning?”

            “If you stay the fuck away from me, I might keep my mouth shut.”

            Ian stared for a moment longer and then gave Mickey a curt nod. He turned towards the exit of the tent, cursing under his breath, and Mickey shifted back into his lounging position. Ian had a hand on the flap and a foot on the ground outside when he looked back over his shoulder.

             “What’d you want to talk about last night?”

            “None of your fucking business.”

            Ian bristled and bit out, “You know, the best part is usually the jokes in the back,”

            Mickey looked up at him, something dark flashing through his eyes over a hint of fear.

            Ian let the flap of the tent fall between him and that look. Every inch of him was buzzing as he played over the words from the conversation. As much as he wanted to keep the job, staying away from Mickey weighed as a heavy promise in his chest. Mickey was still scared, still scarred, and wouldn’t be ready to go to war if he insisted on keeping to himself. And hated or not, Ian still wanted to keep his promise to bring him home alive.

            Worrying, Ian headed back into his tent. He was still mad enough to punch a wall, but the thought of Mickey brought mixed emotions to his mind. He sniffed back whatever feeling was rubbing against his skull and flopped down onto the cot. Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing and tried to convince himself to fall asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Mickey stumbled from his tent, half-asleep, to go to the bathroom. He had fudged the details of his conversation with Ian to Denny, telling the guy that they had been speaking about his progress as a soldier. Of course, that had only sent Denny into a stream of wild speculations about what those questions, coming from his sergeant, could possibly mean.

            Mickey had faked falling asleep ten minutes in.

            Now he headed across the darkened campsite with limited vision. He kept one hand on the tent walls, trying his best to keep in a straight line. He hadn’t actually fallen asleep all night. Words and memories and images he didn’t need kept running through his head. The words that had haunted him the night before were now a calming mantra he used to block out everything else. _I miss you. I love you. Come home soon._ If he tried hard enough, he could pretend to see it scrawled in Mandy’s broken handwriting or whispered in his mother’s husky voice.

            Because his eyelids were drooping, he didn’t see Wells walking towards him until he knocked into him. “Woah,” Wells said. He reached out his hands to steady both of them, but Mickey stepped back quickly, shaking himself free of Wells’ grasp.

            Wells laughed. His breath smelled like alcohol and cigars. “Where you going, Milkovich?”

            Mickey stepped around him silently.

            “Aww, come on. I only went to him because you wouldn’t bite.”

            Mickey stopped in his tracks. He turned, blinking the sleep from his eyes, as the words shot him awake like a lightning bolt. Wells’ cocky smile lit up the starry night. “What?” Mickey asked.

            “I know you’re jealous, but it doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

            Mickey took a step closer. He lowered his voice to a growl. “The fuck are you saying?”

            “Didn’t say anything,” Wells replied, quieter this time. The drunken lilt of his words faded to nothing and his goofy smile became something more sinister. “Implied that you like it up the ass, but didn’t say anything.”

            Mickey shoved Wells hard. He stumbled against the nearest tent and righted himself. Mickey stepped closer, his eyes hot coals. Every mixed emotion and ruined memory bubbled to the surface. All his father’s words came in through his ears, shouted in a drunken stupor, his fists ready to swing through the air. All Mickey’s swallowed impulses and self-hatred and disgust boiled inside of him. He took Wells by the collar of his shirt.

            “Say that again,” he dared.

            Wells opened his mouth and Mickey punched him square in the jaw. Imprints of Wells teeth scraped against his fingers. He hit him again, using his other hand to keep the struggling man from running away as he pounded against his face. Wells stepped back, his shirt ripping, and ducked the next punch.

            Wells darted forward and hit back, twice to Mickey’s stomach. Mickey retaliated in kind, pressing Wells’ head down towards the ground and kneeing him in the ribs. Wells turned under his hand and knocked him slightly off balance before coming back with two punches to the face.

            People started coming out of their tents. The grunts of the two boys had carried into the night when their words didn’t. Mickey threw Wells to the ground and got on top of him, beating him into the ground with the full force of his fists.

            He thought it would throw him off to have an audience that didn’t seem to care which way the fight went, or even that a fight was going on. They simply watched, no one on either side, and occasionally sucked in their breath at a particularly nasty blow.

            Wells got in a few more shots himself, but he was thoroughly bloodied by the time a familiar voice cut through the din. “What the fuck?” Ian shouted.

            He grabbed the back of Mickey’s shirt and flung him into the crowd behind him. Mickey stumbled to his feet, stopping just short of catapulting into the others, and brushed off his hands. He was still glaring at Wells, his breath seething in his lungs, and when Ian helped Wells to his feet, he started forward again.

            Ian held out a hand to stop him. He came to a halt just inches from those long, thin fingers. He swallowed the rage in his throat. Wells made a move forward and Ian grabbed him by the front of the shirt, pushing him back more gently than he had pushed Mickey. Mickey almost stepped forward in protest before disgust reared acidicly in his throat.

            Ian looked between the two of them carefully. The crowd had started to disperse, only a few people staying to watch the aftermath. “What the hell is this about?” Ian snapped.

            “Ask him,” Wells said. “He hit me first.”

            “Yeah, I’m the cause of this, you fucking faggot.”

            “I’d tell you to remove the stick from your ass, but I think you like it there.”

            “If you think you can-”

            Mickey stepped into Ian’s hand and his words cut off as Ian’s fingers clenched against his shirt. Electricity and butterflies shot through him. He quickly stepped back, spitting on the ground, and said, “Don’t fucking touch me.”

            “Oh, come on. Don’t deny yourself what you want.”

            “You’re a fucking dead man.”

            “Try me.”

            “You think I don’t know where the fucking guns are?”

            “SHUT UP!” Ian shouted.

            Wells’ eyes widened and he swallowed whatever his response was going to be. Mickey merely hardened into his place, a few steps away from the other boys, trying his hardest to muster his shaking into a facsimile of a smirk. He shuddered when Ian took a deep, steadying breath.

            “Both of you are fucking idiots,” Ian hissed. His ocean eyes glinted in the darkness, darting between the two of them. “This platoon, this war,  is not a joke. It is not a love triangle. It’s not a fucking orgy. What you want, what you feel, no one fucking cares. Least of all me. So you want to have big battles over whose gay and whose straight and whether it fucking matters, feel free to do it when you’re back in your homes having gang wars over your goddamn territories. For the moment, calm the fuck down.”

            “Fuck you, faggot,” Mickey said.

            Ian took a step away from Wells. “You’re either going to say something or you’re not, but if you’re not, you can’t go around punching everyone who doesn’t fit your narrow view of society.”

            “He said I wanted to fuck you.”

            “Be fucked by him,” Wells corrected.

            Mickey made a run at him again and Ian shoved him backwards. Mickey knocked into the side of the nearest tent and did his best to stand up straight as Ian turned in a circle, letting out a deep breath like he had just puffed on a cigarette.

            He shook his head and then yelled, “Three laps!”

            There was some stirring from inside the tents, but not much else.

            “Fighting is against the army code of conduct and requires punishment,” Ian explained loudly. “Everyone up and out and running. NOW.”

            Grumbling, men moved out of their tents and started to head sleepily towards the track. A few of them shot glares towards Mickey and Wells. Others branched out further into the camp to wake the other tents, unwilling to have only those within the range of Ian’s voice do the early morning run.

            “Go you two,” Ian said.

            Wells scoffed. “I get punched and I have to run laps?”

            “Collective responsibility, cadet,” Ian said tiredly. “Everyone runs for everyone’s mistakes. And as long as you’re still in the condition to be hurling insults at Milkovich, I assume you’re perfectly fine to run a few laps.”

            Wells spat and headed after the others. Ian turned towards Mickey. He scanned him quickly, pausing on all the spots of blood, and said, “You’re going too.”

            “No.”

            “Milkovich-”

            “Don’t fucking try to tell me that anything you say applies to me anymore,” Mickey said. He spat on the ground and turned around, heading for his tent. He was pretty sure he heard Ian swear but the exact word was lost to the night.

            He was back at his tent in a couple of minutes, nursing the bruises on his knuckles. Other than that, he was pretty sure all Wells had managed to do was bloody his lip. He sat down on the end of his cot for a second, shook out his hand despite the pain, and then rolled into a ball to close his eyes. His insomnia won though, keeping him up repeating words that should have meant nothing to him until the wake-up call came at dawn.


	15. Chapter 15

Days passed and Mickey followed orders as minimally as possible. He bristled when Ian looked at him and did everything short of spitting at his feet when the sergeant called his name. Nausea came with the sight of Ian along with the haunting image of him behind Wells. Mickey had to close his eyes whenever he accidentally glanced at the sergeant and count to ten to stop himself from walking out on tasks.

            It got harder, not easier, to be around them. When he saw them catch each others’ eyes in the cafeteria, he pushed away his food. When he caught them heading towards Ian’s tent, he had had to stop in place and force himself to breathe. One day in the middle of an exercise Ian had adjusted Wells grip on a plastic gun and Wells had winked at him. Mickey had dropped his gun and walked out of the clearing, heading straight to his tent.

            Through it all, his dad’s voice kept yelling in his head. All things Mickey had heard before directed at himself, except for one. For no reason whatsoever, Terry kept hissing the word _jealous_ in Mickey’s ear every time Wells came into sight. The word only made Mickey’s stomach roll harder.

            Slowly, Mickey started to notice Wells having less to do with Ian. Or Ian having less to do with him. While Ian spent equal time watching all his soldiers, his eyes had begun glazing over Mickey quickly after the night of the fight. Soon that same glaze happened to Wells too.

            Wells spent more time hanging out with the other drafters and less time saying he had to go when the sun dipped below the hills. He barely seemed bothered by it. Another day, another man gone, and Wells just sat flicking cards across his stolen table, making jokes about all the women he’d get when he came home a war hero.

            Somehow that managed to make Mickey sicker.

            Since Ian wasn’t watching him, Mickey watched Ian. It started unconsciously; his eyes would stay on the sergeant just a little too long after he’d finished giving instructions or Mickey would hear a command given to someone else and react to the sound of Ian’s voice. When he caught himself doing it, lingering over the look of Ian silhouetted against the winter blue sky, he justified it.

            He was watching to make sure Ian wasn’t watching him. He was watching to make sure that the faggot didn’t look at him too long. He was trying to make sure that now that Wells seemed to be slipping out of the picture, there wasn’t someone else slipping in. Jesus. How many homos could there be in a place like this?

            Two, Mickey thought, seemed like a high enough rate of stupidity.

            _Let alone three._

            Watching Ian came with consequences. Subtle changes in the sergeant rang like warning bells in Mickey’s head, although he didn’t know why. Sometimes Ian showed up a few seconds later than the last soldier after the horn had been blown in the morning. Occasionally the glazed look he got when passing by Wells or Mickey extended to a few more soldiers. At dinner he rolled his food around his plate, trying to make it look like something had been eaten, when in reality none of it had.

            Mickey dismissed it.

            He tried to dismiss it.

            He watched for it like a nurse on a night shift who had seen a patient staring a little too long at their morphine drip.

            Then, five days after “the incident” as Mickey liked to call it –mainly because the Terry in his head didn’t seem to know what he was referring to– there was nothing to watch at dinner. Ian had sent everyone into the mess hall and Mickey had presumed he had followed. The day had been long, his back ached, there was still sweat sticking his fingers together, and everyone in the place seemed to share a sense of defeat. Mickey had thought nothing of it when Ian had looked the same.

            “You seen the sergeant?” Mickey asked suddenly.

            He had broken through a conversation. He could see it in Fleming’s eyes as he looked at him. Then, as if the conversation had been nothing important –and in all honesty Mickey had no idea what the conversation had been– Fleming said, “Two minutes ago. You know, he’s that redheaded dude that yells at us all day?”

            Mickey stared at Fleming until the man ducked his head, silently apologizing for his sarcasm. Shaking his head, Mickey glanced over towards Wells at the end of the table. The man was already smiling, his blue eyes sparkling, and he said, “Why? You looking for something to do tonight?”

            The smile on Mickey’s face could have drawn blood. “Just answer the fucking question.”

            “He went back to his tent,” Wells said. He shrugged. “Tired.”

            “And not hungry?”

            “I’m not his fucking keeper.”

            Mickey swallowed the words on the tip of his tongue. Asking Wells if he cared at all would be synonymous to asking the whole table if they knew about his relationship with the sergeant. As it was, the two of them were getting weird looks from the others and Wells looked all too pleased with the turn of the conversation.

            Standing up from the table, Mickey headed out of the mess hall and towards Ian’s tent. Profanity flew through his mind like wildfire, blocking out any disgusting insults Terry felt like throwing at him. The nausea got worse the closer Mickey drew to the tent. He was having flashbacks, the kind he imagined war-tested soldiers had when suffering from PTSD, and for a moment he could have sworn that he heard Ian groan from his tent.

            But it was silent. The night had covered everything like a blanket, having fallen fast and early in the evening. Mickey covered his mouth with one hand, breathing hard, and tried to justify everything to himself. He couldn’t die. Ian was his only chance at not dying. If the sergeant wasn’t okay, that was a logistical problem. Not an emotional one.

            And it was probably just a cold.

            Mickey drew back the flap on the tent. The room was dark and Ian was little more than a large lump under the blankets. Mickey swallowed.

            “Ian?”

            No movement. The only response was the slight hum of Ian’s breathing.

            “You okay?”

            Still nothing.

            Mickey let the tent flap fall and trudged back to his own tent. It was early, too early to be asleep, but the sergeant was sawing logs. But he was just asleep. And it had been a long day.

            Mickey shook off the weight in his chest, surprised that Ian’s silence had silenced the voices in his head. He untied his boots, kicked them halfway across the room, settled onto the cot, and pulled out one of the magazines his father had sent with him. He stared at the girl on the first page for a couple of seconds before shifting his eyes to the articles.


	16. Chapter 16

Eight broken army trucks had been rolled into the middle of the clearing. The air was far from warm but the sun mixed with the car fumes and the arguing to make every single soldier sweat. They cursed and hacked away at the engines, probably doing more damage than good.

            “Switch,” Ian said.

            One person from each group rotated on to the next truck. There was no reward for being on the first truck that managed to start. The only reward would be that once all the truck’s engines were purring they were allowed to go to the showers and spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on their asses. A reward that meant a lot more to them than Ian thought it would have. Or at least, it had meant a lot more to them two hours ago when the exercise had started and they all thought that fixing the trucks would be a piece of cake.

            Ian kept an eye on everyone. He was trying to make sure everyone found different people to work with and understood that it was a group task. That rule made everyone grumble when it turned out only about half the platoon knew how to use a wrench and only a quarter actually knew how to fix a car. Frequent curses came from those who could have fixed the trucks alone ninety minutes ago. And every time someone raised their voice or got mad instead of simply teaching another how to do it, they were sent on a lap around the camp.

            The only person Ian wasn’t watching was Mickey. He let his eyes skip over him, making sure he noted everyone else except for him. As such, he was hyperaware of Mickey’s presence before him. He knew the exact spot he occupied, hot and sweaty like the rest, and the first of the soldiers to have given up on wearing a shirt.

            Ian swallowed as he heard a wrench clunk angrily against an engine. Then a plethora of curse words filled the air. One of the soldiers in the group stumbled backwards. “Lap,” Ian called, glancing in their direction. The soldier who had done the shoving took off, muttering something under his breath. Ian didn’t have to hear it to know that it didn’t paint him in a very flattering light.

            “If you guys end up using flashlights to do this,” Ian said, “I’m going to make you run double laps tomorrow.”

            “This one’s busted.”

            Taking a breath, Ian said, “They’re all busted. That’s the point.”

            “No. I’m telling you I need at least three new parts. Probably a new timing belt. The oil’s shot and to be completely honest, I’m not sure these spark plugs woulda worked three years ago.”

            Ian curled and uncurled his fist. He forced himself to take a deep breath before raising his eyes to the one place in the entire clearing where he wasn’t supposed to look.

            Mickey was perched on top of the hood of the truck, looking down at the engine. His muscles were outlined with sweat, like some kind of Greek god sculpted by Praxiteles. He had a wrench in one hand and was holding it inbetween his spread legs.

            Ian met his eyes and only his eyes. Looking anywhere else would probably set the guy off. “All of the trucks can be repaired with the tools provided,” Ian replied. “If you disagree... I don’t care.”

            Mickey almost smiled. “I’m not saying I can’t make ‘er run. I’m saying she’s gonna breakdown in about five miles.”

            “I’ll believe that when you get her to run.”

            Mickey rapped his fingers against the windshield. The soldier sitting in the front seat turned the keys and the engine coughed, sputtered, and then purred to life. All the other soldiers looked over with new smiles and a couple cheered.

            Mickey smirked. “You were saying?”

            “I was saying move on to the next truck.”

            Ian walked away as the truck was shut off and the men around it dispersed to other trucks. He felt the ghost of a pair of eyes on him, but couldn’t manage to place them. He shook off the idea that maybe Mickey was watching him. Mickey had asked him to leave him alone. And leave him alone he would.

            Three hours later, with a lot fewer soldiers sent for laps by the end of the exercise, all eight trucks had purring engines. Ian nodded at the group, spouted useless words of praise, and sent them off to the showers. He was about to turn around to go back to his tent when a voice called him back.

            “I’m not kidding about that truck,” Mickey said. “It’s not going to make it out of here.”

            “What do you want, Milkovich?”

            “I want for one of your fucking trucks not to breakdown in the middle of nowhere,” Mickey snapped. “Sorry that’s too fucking difficult for you to understand.”

            Ian sighed. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was already beginning to dip behind the clouds. He had no time to stand there and watch as Mickey decided what he wanted to do with his heart. “These trucks are used consistently in this exercise,” Ian explained. “As long as it’s possible for the engine to start, no one cares about the rest of it.”

            Mickey was silent for a long moment. He had his shirt wadded up in  his hands, holding it tight enough to choke the air out of it. Ian kept imagining those hands around his throat as the fabric turned purple.

            “You know,” Ian said finally, “it’s easier for me to stay away from you if you stay away from me too.” Ian turned and started walking away. He just wanted to get back to his tent and sit alone while listening to the sounds of the soldiers outside his tent. Laughing, yelling, chasing each other. Sounding happy instead of defeated. Sounding like for once their drill sergeant wasn’t breathing down their necks and about to crush them under his thumb. He just wanted to go to sleep.

            “You okay?”

            “The fuck do you care?” Ian called back.

            No more sounds followed him. Not Mickey’s voice or footsteps or breathing. Ian left him behind in the clearing, heading back to his tent and the silence it offered him.


	17. Chapter 17

Mickey watched Ian walk away, his heart sinking in his chest. A voice in his head kept screaming his father’s words every time he saw Ian, but the sun and the sweat and that look on Ian’s face made the voice quieter. He knew he needed to step away, to stop watching, and to do exactly what Ian had said. Stay away from him. That was the point, after all. Distance was what kept Mickey safe.

            He took a step backwards and headed towards the showers. He took his time going there. If he took long enough, the others would be finished and then he could shower in peace. As he went, he smiled to himself remembering a couple of the mistakes he had made on purpose when fixing the trucks. Screwing a bolt the wrong way, tightening when he should have loosened... all to make Wells yell at him and go running again.

            Mickey reached the bathroom and showered quickly. He was only there with a couple of other stragglers and as long as he kept his eyes on the walls, he could keep his feelings to himself. He was in and out in a matter of minutes, drying off with a towel and throwing his sweaty clothes back on.

            There was another game going on in Wells’ tent and, although he had been invited by Ashton, Mickey thought it best to stay away. Just the thought of being in close quarters with Wells made his skin crawl.

            He headed back to his tent, thinking maybe he could get in a nap or finish up some ‘reading’. The moment he stepped into the tent, he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Denny was sitting on his cot, obsessively tying and retying his boots, trying to get them tight enough. The guy was practically in tears as he finished the last knot, caught sight of a loose lace near the bottom of the boot and started over again.

            Mickey clapped him on the back when he entered. Denny shook, his fingers flying off of the laces as he looked up at Mickey. He was practically a kid –having signed up the moment he turned eighteen– and it was clear to everyone that the training was getting to him.

            “Hey, Mickey,” Denny said. He barely breathed between his words. “Good job with the trucks today. You got three of them running. Wow. I was there when one of them started running, but I barely touched the thing. Just handed out tools, you know? And turned the keys. Basically kept out of the way. I’m good at being out of the way. But, you know, being out of the way ain’t exactly-”

            “Want a smoke?” Mickey offered.

            He held a cigarette out to the kid. Slowly, Denny reached up and took it. He lit it on his own and then coughed up all the smoke. He wrinkled his nose but still took another drag. Two more and the shaking of his fingers seemed to level out.

            “You did good,” Mickey said, sitting down on his cot.

            “I got yelled at a lot.”

            “As long as it wasn’t by Ian, doesn’t matter.”

            Denny frowned a bit at the use of the sergeant’s first name but otherwise didn’t react. He twirled the cigarette between his fingers and almost dropped it. He hissed slightly when the burning tip touched against his palm.

            “I don’t think I’m gonna make it,” Denny said quietly. He was speaking more to himself than he was to Mickey, or at least that’s what Mickey thought. The guy was used to speaking without getting a response. The purpose of his words were usually just to keep the awkward silence out of the air. “I’m not good at any of this stuff.”

            “It’s only the third week. You’ll be fine.”

            He shook his head. “No. No, I won’t. I’ll be shot or bombed or have my throat slit by one of those guerilla fighters that the news is always talking about and my mom will have to meet my coffin at the airplane hangar and she’ll get a folded up flag and somehow she’ll have to explain to my little brother why I did what I did and he never did understand that I was going away and-”

            “You been listening to anything the sergeant says?” Mickey interrupted. He chewed on the end of his cigarette. “He’s not gonna let any of us die.”

            Denny snorted half-heartedly. His voice was small and almost hopeful, but a deep cynicism was rooted beneath the words. “You actually trust the guy?”

            “Why shouldn’t I?”

            “He’s a little off his hinges. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that war is a serious business, but he’s been yelling and making us run laps and he put a gun barrel up against Miller’s chest. I heard he shot at his last group.”

            “He’d be discharged.”

            “I think he’s giving up on us.”

            Mickey blew smoke into the air. He could see where Denny was coming from. The sergeant had spent the day watching them disinterestedly and had barely even managed to spew out words of praise. But it was three weeks in and the sergeant had managed to get everyone to know everyone else’s names. The segregation of the mess hall was beginning to breakdown. Everyone hated Ian, but the platoon itself was getting stronger.

            “He had a bad day,” Mickey said. “He’s entitled to his bad days. And even if he did give up on us, it’s his job to prepare us and he’s not going to give up on that.”

            “What if he stops caring if we die or not?”

            “That’s the only thing he cares about.”

            Denny swallowed and attempted to smoke again. He coughed, dropped the cigarette, and put it out with the heel of his unlaced boot. He kept his eyes on the ground and, for once, words stopped coming out of his mouth. Mickey felt an odd weight of responsibility settling over him. He almost felt as if Mandy was sitting across from him, crying because some boy hadn’t asked her to the dance.

            “There’s only one thing you need to know to stay alive out there,” Mickey said. “And that’s how to use a gun.”

            “I don’t know how to use a gun.”

            “Lucky for you, I do.” He got up and gestured for Denny to follow him. “Come on.”

            He headed out of the tent. Denny scrambled after him, his constant speech coming back with a vengeance as he outlined every single way that what Mickey had just said was against army regulations. Mickey went back to ignoring what he was saying, letting the words wash over him like a cresting ocean wave.

            They walked over to the storage shed and Mickey jimmied open the lock. He threw open one of the boxes with fake guns as Denny closed the door. Quickly, he put it together and handed it to Denny.

            “Can you tell me what that is?”

            “50-cal.”

            Mickey turned it around and offered it to him. Denny took it tentatively, almost as if he was afraid it would go off despite the fact that it was obviously plastic and therefore unloaded.

            Mickey went through the parts of the gun with him, drilling him on how to make and unmake it. He taught him how to aim, wishing that instead of this fake shit he had a handgun or at least a pellet gun to make sure Denny was actually learning.

            About an hour later, the dinner bell rang and Mickey broke down the gun before putting it back. They snuck out of the shed and headed towards the mess hall together. Denny had found a new topic –something about the way the night sky looked before it was dark enough for the starts to come out– and Mickey listened contentedly. The rambling reminded him of Mandy in a good mood or Iggy in a bad one. Although Iggy rarely talked about the stars.

            They separated once they entered the mess hall, but their two groups weren’t sitting too far away from each other anymore. Mickey headed over to the four other drafters, keeping his distance from Wells and scanned the cafeteria. Ian wasn’t there. He settled into his seat and tried not to let that bother him.


	18. Chapter 18

Mickey woke slowly the next morning, stretching out on his cot with a growing sense of dread. The feeling started in his stomach as it rumbled with a vengeance. Something it hadn’t done since the first day at the camp when he had missed two meals while running laps.

            He glanced across the tent to see Denny still fast asleep, curled up in a ball with a contented smile on his face. Mickey shook his head. The next thing he would have to teach the boy was how to sleep with one eye open.

            Mickey rolled to his feet and pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt. He headed out and was nearly blinded by the sunlight. It blinked down on the camp from far overhead. His first thought was that he had missed the horn, but the chances that Denny had missed the horn too were slim.

            He approached a couple of guys standing around by one of the tents. “You know what’s going on?” Mickey asked.

            One of them shrugged. Another said, “Don’t complain.”

            Nodding, Mickey managed to walk away before he rolled his eyes. A couple of the tents had their flaps open and small groups of people clustered inside. Others’ flaps were closed but their snores still broke through the canvas. Mickey walked until he hit the end of the tents and saw someone running laps.

            “Persky!” Mickey called. The man didn’t slow.

            Swearing, Mickey broke into a run. It took him a dozen minutes to catch up with the guy –he was usually the fastest in the group– and then another handful of minutes to catch his breath. “Persky,” Mickey said again. “Were you told to run?”

            “No. Missed the horn, missed the run, doing it myself.”

            “Yeah, looks like everyone missed the horn. And the run.”

            Persky slowed slightly, looking down at Mickey. “Maybe it’s a day off?”

            “They do that?”

            Persky shrugged. “Not without warning, but... dunno. The sergeant’s a weird guy. Maybe he’s planning on shooting us down later.”

            Mickey didn’t manage to quirk a smile in return. He veered from the path and headed back to the tents. He slowed to a stop outside of Wells’ tent, took a step towards it, and then a step away. This tent was closer and had at least as much of a chance of holding Ian as the sergeant’s own tent. And it would save him a walk if he went to Ian’s tent first and he wasn’t there.

            Muttering a curse, he rapped his knuckles against the metal supports of the tent. Nothing. “You up?” he called. Nothing.

            Shielding his eyes, he stepped into the tent and then peered through his fingers towards Wells’ bed. Wells was hugging his pillow to his chest, blankets around his waist, fast asleep. Mickey kicked the bottom of his cot. The metal clanged but Wells didn’t budge.

            “Wells,” Mickey said. There was a grumble from the other side of the room as Berns shifted, but Mickey ignored it. If the guy could walk and talk like a log, he was sure he could sleep like one. He kicked the end of Wells’ cot again. “Wake up.”

            No response. Mickey bit back a sigh and stepped up to the bed. He rattled the cot with his knee, sending it up and down in waves seen only by sea-faring craft. He let the cot bang back onto the ground and finally a sound of life came from Wells in the form of several mumbled curse words.

            “You seen Ian?”

            “Who?”

            Mickey glanced towards Berns. The guy could have been dead. He kicked the cot again. “You know, the guy who fucks you in the ass,” Mickey hissed. Wells groaned. “You seen him?”

            “Not since the trucks.”

            “He wasn’t here last night?”

            “Nope.”

            “And you weren’t with him?”

            “Fuck. I told you. Not since the trucks.” Wells rolled over in the cot, the blankets barely managing to cover his junk. He attempted to open his eyes, but they were glued shut by sleep. He added, “Why do you even fucking care? I thought you wanted us to keep our homo germs away from you.”

            “It’s almost fucking noon and the horn hasn’t gone off,” Mickey snapped. “You don’t find that concerning?”

            “Maybe he’s sleeping.”

            “He seem like the type to oversleep to you?”

            “I’m not his boyfriend.”

            Mickey kicked the cot harder and Wells groaned loudly. He sat up, his eyes flashing angrily as he looked up at Mickey. “He’s not fucking here. Get the fuck out.”

            Grabbing Wells by the back of the neck, Mickey tossed him onto the ground. Amidst the curses that followed, he walked out of the tent and started towards Ian’s. His fingers were itching for a cigarette and every nerve in his body was a live wire. As he closed in on the sergeant’s tent, he noticed a sort of makeshift force field around it.

            A dozen soldiers stood in a rough semicircle around the entrance. They were whispering to each other, all of them nervous, none of them brave enough to breach the five feet between them and the sergeant’s tent. Mickey muttered a curse as he approached them and a couple turned to look at him. A few greeted him.

            “He in there?” Mickey asked.

            Someone shrugged. “Don’t know.”

            Mickey looked around at the group. Die-hards, every last one of them. Even though most of them hated Ian, they would still follow him to the ends of the earth. They just  wouldn’t head into his tent to wake him up and find out what the hell was wrong with him.

            Mickey rolled his eyes. He stepped into the no man’s land that the soldiers had created and snuck into Ian’s tent. It was pitch black; the canvas walls easily kept out the sun. Ian’s uniform sat in the middle of the room, crumpled up in one spot as if he had stripped and then fallen straight into bed. He had his blankets pulled up to his chin and was facing the wall. Mickey could barely tell if he was breathing.

            He cleared his throat. “Ian?”

            No response.

            He took a step closer to the cot, looked over his prone body. He saw a slight rise and fall of the blankets and took a breath of relief that at least the sergeant wasn’t dead. However, drugged, injured, or generally incapable of getting out of bed due to something the others had done to him still weren’t out of the question. Or asleep. He could just be fast asleep to the point that the annoying alarm clock that had been knocked onto the floor –which Mickey stepped on when he got closer to the cot– couldn’t wake him up.

            Mickey swore, balancing on the foot that hadn’t been pierced by a tiny metal rod. He braced himself against the edge of the cot and looked down at Ian, squinting through the pain. “Ian?” he tried again, slowly putting his foot back on the ground. He placed a hand on Ian’s shoulder and shook him slightly. “You okay?”

            Nothing.

            Mickey shook him harder. “Hey, come on, man. There’s forty guys out here wondering if you’re dead or not.”

            A string of words too muffled to make out came from Ian’s lips. His body shifted slightly on the cot, closer to the wall, and the blankets came closer to his face.

            “You gotta get up.”

            More mumbled words.

            “What?”

            “I said fuck you.”

            Mickey let out a soft whistle and took a step back. “It’s the middle of the day. Exactly one of your soldiers has done what they’re supposed to do first thing in the morning, and even he probably didn’t get his ass out of bed until twenty minutes ago.”

            “I don’t care.”

            “Ian.”

            “Remember what I said yesterday?”

            Mickey’s fists clenched at the challenge. But Ian still wasn’t moving and his words were a monotone. Swallowing hard, he forced his hands to uncurl and said,  “Get the fuck out of bed.”

            “Leave me alone.”

            “Ian-”

            “FUCK OFF!”

            Mickey stepped back quickly. He could hear the muttering from the soldiers outside. He tried to stop himself from shaking, but it was hard when the last time he had been yelled at like that was when his father had found him kissing the neighbour’s son and beat him within an inch of his life. He was six. He had done everything in his power to never get yelled at like that again.

            Still, even as he had to remind himself that it was necessary to breathe, he asked softly, “Are you okay, Ian?”

            No response. The mumbled words and harsh yell had sacrificed themselves back to the silence. It fit the darkness better, wrapping around Ian tighter than his blanket. Mickey stood there for a minute to collect himself, hoping if he hesitated long enough Ian might change his mind about not getting out of bed. When the silence stayed, he headed out of the tent.

            A dozen pairs of eyes were on him the second his feet hit the ground. He cleared his throat. “The sergeant isn’t feeling well. So we’re supposed to...” Mickey coughed. He had no idea what they were supposed to do. Or what kind of authority he would have if he made it up. “Just take the day off. Everything’s fine. It’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

            Mickey nodded. No one looked like they believed him, but they walked away from the tent. Mickey almost wanted them to stay, to demand more of an explanation, so that he could try to figure one out and maybe understand it himself.

            He hesitated a moment before stepping away from the tent. He tried to shake off his unease and failed. He kept repeating his last words to the group like a mantra. If he said it enough, it might become true. And repeating it was the only thing that kept his breathing steady.

            _It’ll be fine by tomorrow._

_It’ll be fine by tomorrow._


	19. Chapter 19

Ian tried to get out of bed. In his head he was shouting at himself to get up, roll out of bed, put his feet on the ground. How hard could it be to turn around and stand up? How hard could it be to put on a pair of pants? How fucking lazy did he have to be to still be in bed?

            He took a deep breath, the air rasping harshly against his throat. Closing his eyes, he tried to stop his thoughts from racing past him. They escaped into the darkness, running wild around the tent, and then came back screaming through his ears. The cot was warm, and comfortable, and if he didn’t move, he could will the thoughts to pass him by. If he pulled the blankets up a little further, the thoughts might not even notice that he was there at all.

            Occasionally voices from soldiers passing by broke through his personal monologue of the day. Or the night. Or the week. He had lost track of how many people had passed by and how many could possibly pass by in a day and what that had meant about how long he had been lying there. What that meant about how long he had been alone.

            He ignored the voices. Most of them weren’t talking about him anyways. The ones that were, were smart enough to pause their conversations as they crossed by his tent. They seemed to be having fun. They seemed less afraid. Some of them even seemed to be branching out from their own groups and finding other people to talk to. Ian managed to tell himself that that was one thing he was doing right. He had united them. Even if it was against him.

            He stiffened at a noise. His tent flap moved, beating softly against the inside of the tent. The clattering of cutlery across a plate flew through the room, luckily not followed by the sound of cutlery dropping to the ground. A whispered curse did follow though, along with a heavy footstep, and a silence that moved from comforting to awkward.

            Ian did nothing to change that. His feet shifted slightly under the blankets and he wiggled closer to the wall. He could smell the heat coming off of the plate but not what was on it. His stomach grumbled involuntarily even as the thought of putting food to his lips made him want to vomit.

            “I brought dinner,” Mickey said. There were some footsteps and the shifting of paper. The plate was put down on the desk. “I thought you might be hungry.”

            Ian’s body called out for food but the cot was too warm and Mickey’s presence too threatening. He tried hard not even to breathe enough to shift the blankets. Mickey’s very presence sent dark thoughts pounding through his head. _He doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re scum. You are scum. Fucking faggot homo scum. Scum. Scum. Scum. Scum._

“You’ve been in fucking bed all day,” Mickey said. His words were barely audible over the ones in Ian’s head. “You’ve got to get up.”

            Ian shook his head against his pillow. He knew Mickey couldn’t see him do it, but he felt better about it than saying nothing. His eyes were closed again, trying to hold in the tears. Mickey was right. He needed to get up. Why couldn’t he fucking get up?

            “At least eat something.”

            Ian attempted a grunt. His throat was too raw for the sound to make it out.

            “Come on!” Mickey shouted. “You can’t...”

            Hands were on him, pulling him backwards, the blankets slipping off of him. Ian struggled. He was rolled so he was no longer facing the tent, Mickey trying to pull him off of the cot. Ian slapped him hard, batting away his hands and finally pushing him away. He ended up in a sitting position, blankets bunched around his feet, shivering.

            “Fuck off,” Ian managed.

            Mickey swallowed. His blue eyes were wide and sparkling like the sea just before a morning storm. He was shaking, staring at Ian like he was afraid he would disappear. Ian wasn’t sure he was wrong to look at him like that. He could easily roll back over, back into the ball, and, for all intents and purposes, disappear.

            “We kinda need you out there,” Mickey said.

            “No, you don’t.”

            “Everyone’s just walking around-”

            “Having fun. Happy without their sergeant around. Yeah, I’ve gotten that from the dozens of people walking by and laughing. Just generally better off without me around.”

            Mickey scoffed. “That’s what you think that is? That’s just a bunch of overworked pussies happy that someone’s not ruining their manicures today. That’s a bunch of fucked up rich kids about to get their heads blown off.”

            Ian shrugged. “At least they’ll be happy in the weeks before it happens.”

            He moved to roll back over and Mickey caught him by the shoulder. Ian looked up, tired and unmoved by Mickey’s yelling. He barely saw the man standing in front of him. However, he felt the weight of his hand on his shoulder. It was the only thing keeping him upright as the world spun around him and the words echoed through his ears. _It’s all your fault. You’re scum. Fault. Faggot. Scum._

“Can I go back to bed now?” Ian asked, mustering all the sarcasm he had at his disposal. Turned out it was none. He just sounded tired and defeated. And his words sent tangible chills throughout Mickey’s body. Ian flinched away from his hand.

            “Can you at least tell me what’s wrong?” Mickey asked.

            Ian stared at him for a long moment. It was an interesting question. The answers ranged from everything to nothing to Mickey to Wells to Ian himself. The world felt like it was slightly off its tilt. That could be wrong. The fact that his bed was the safest, easiest, warmest place to be could be wrong. The fact that Mickey –arguably the soldier in the camp who hated him most, as well as the soldier in the camp he was closest to– was the one asking that question could be what was wrong.

            None of those things were the answer Ian gave.

            “It’s my fault.”

            Mickey’s hand dropped from Ian’s shoulder. “What is?”

            “Lip,” Ian said. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”

            For a long moment, it seemed that Mickey was mulling over this statement in his mind. Then he shifted back a step and said, “How?”

            “I wasn’t there.”

            “Why the fuck would you be there?”

            Ian blinked. Then he shifted into a more comfortable sitting position and gestured for Mickey to get the chair. He waited until Mickey settled in before he continued.

            “The moment I turned eighteen I went and I signed up for the army. Of course, my sister was freaking out and Carl and Debbie were... terrified. They thought I couldn’t take care of myself out there. So Lip decided he’d come with me. We trained side by side for a couple years and when the war hit... we were ready to go in. Together. Have each other’s backs.

            “Three days before deployment I was called into the lieutenant’s office and told that I had been promoted and would be starting as a drill sergeant. I wouldn’t be shipping out with my brother. And... instead of arguing or telling them I’d wait until after my service, I jumped at the chance to go further. To be in a better position. After all, he was the one out here to take care of me. It wasn’t my job to take care of him.”

            “Ian-”

            “He lasted two weeks in Vietnam. Two. And already, when he came back... I don’t think Carl recognized him. Liam definitely didn’t. I... I knew the signs. The little things that change, that crack in a soldier, and I could see him in that coffin. But Carl kept asking where Lip was. He kept asking who was in the coffin, how he was supposed to believe that was his brother and... and he never should have been out there.

            “Lip joined the army to take care of me. Because my siblings were scared for me. But I can fucking take care of myself! I could’ve taken care of myself and Lip... he could’ve been in fucking college. Carl could be asking who it was at the front of the class in the fucking ugly tweed suit instead of asking who was in the coffin. I should of fucking taken care of him. I should’ve known. I should’ve known he couldn’t... he wasn’t... I should’ve known...”

            Ian sniffed and wiped away the tears at the edges of his eyes. Mickey was frozen on the chair in front of him, his hands wrung together. Ian focused on his feet. He breathed out. “I can take care of myself. Always have. But Lip... Lip didn’t know what he was getting into. And I should’ve known from the very first day... I should’ve known he wouldn’t make it home in one piece.”

            “Ian...”

            “If you’ve got nothing to say, would you leave?”

            Mickey didn’t move for a long moment. Then he turned around in the chair, grabbed the plate he had brought, and handed it to Ian. He rested the ceramic dish carefully in Ian’s hands before letting go of it. “Eat something,” Mickey said. He didn’t move. He didn’t offer another word. He simply pushed the fork and knife closer to Ian.

            Taking a deep breath, Ian shifted the plate onto his lap and used the fork to scoop up some mashed potatoes. He rested their coldness against his tongue and swallowed. He didn’t taste any of it. His stomach rumbled in response, begging for more. He pressed his fork into the mashed potatoes and let go of it.

            “Two more bites.”

            “I’m not a fucking toddler.”

            Ian’s stomach grumbled. He took another bite. Then another. Soon he had stuffed the entire meal into his stomach, his faced screwed up in concentration, trying to make the food fill the dark pit inside his chest. He shoved the empty plate aside and looked up at Mickey.

            “You’re dismissed,” Ian said.

            “You gonna get up tomorrow?”

            Ian shrugged.

            Mickey hesitated a moment and then got up. Ian rolled back over, pulling his blankets up to his chin. He listened to Mickey’s footsteps leaving and the gentle flap of the tent closing up behind him. Emptiness crept into the room again and Ian stared at the wall of the tent. With no one else in the room, the voices came back and the hole he had wanted the food to fill grew larger.


	20. Chapter 20

Two days later the wake-up call came on time. Mickey grumbled, barely managing to open his eyes through the sleepiness. His brain felt as though it was rolling around in his skull and every noise was a jackhammer in his ears.

            The night before had been spent playing poker, complete with the usual cigars and a new addition: alcohol. Wells had managed to sneak out of camp since the sergeant was out of commission and had come back with a cooler full of beers. Mickey had drank until he had stopped worrying that Ian might not have eaten all day and then kept drinking until he had forgotten who Ian was.

            Now the memory pounded back with a vengeance as if it was angry at being shut out. The horn went off twice more, rousing the lazy men from their cots, and sending them stumbling towards the clearing, half-dressed.

            It was not Ian who greeted them there. A short, stout, old man in a clean-cut dark green uniform stood in Ian’s usual spot. To either side of him stood another soldier. One of them was also dressed in formal uniform and looked to be in his early thirties. The driver, Mickey deduced. The other was just an old as the first, but taller with muscles straining against his pockmarked skin. He was dressed in a grey shirt and camouflage pants, and was attempting a smile as the men filed into place.

            “At ease, soldiers,” the middle man called. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, your sergeant has been out of commission for the past few days. A few of you expressed your concern to the main office and that is why we are here. We cannot tell you everything, but we can tell you this: Your sergeant will be fine. We hope to have him back in charge of your camp by the end of the week.” A general grumbling started up at this statement, and not a happy one. The middle man gave the new drill sergeant –there was no doubt in Mickey’s mind that that’s who he was– a look, before continuing, “In the meantime, Sergeant Keller here will be taking over operations.”

            The man in the middle nodded towards the sergeant and he stepped forward. The smile was still there, friendly and deceiving. “Good morning, men. I know that it’s unusual to have a change of command in the middle of your training, but I can assure you that it’ll be temporary and that I will try to make it as smooth as possible. However, you are two days behind on your work. So you know what that means?”

            Everyone stared at him blankly.

            “No laps,” he said. A couple of the men cheered. He laughed. “We’re going straight to working with the guns and will hopefully have you ready to move on to the real things by the end of the week. Now, I’ll need a couple of men to help me.”

            A few of the die-hards offered themselves up right away, but they weren’t the only ones. The qualities of the groups were quickly mixing, the barriers melting away, and if Mickey hadn’t carefully sectioned them out in the first few days, he wouldn’t have known where the lines were drawn anymore either.

            He stayed back and wandered into the mess hall with some of the others. They moved the tables into neat rows and then sat down. The others filtered in with the plastic guns and started handing them out. The minute Mickey’s was in front of him, he put it together and then dismantled it as quickly as he could. He kept doing it, trying to keep the rhythm of his movements in time with his beating heart, and was in the middle of dismantling it for the fourth time when Keller called everyone to attention.

            “Today we’ll be learning the basic parts of the gun,” Keller said.

            “We already went through that,” Mickey interrupted.

            “We’re going to go through it again, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page. No harm, no foul.” Keller plastered on his smile for the response and then dropped it the moment he looked back at the gun in front of him. He started pulling out pieces from the set, describing each one in painful detail as Mickey silently took apart his gun.

            It was nearly two hours later when they were finally told to try their hand at putting the guns together –an exercise they had already done. Mickey put his together and then watched the sergeant walk around the room. He fixed the mistakes of the others without blinking. He made adjustments without telling them why. He put parts together when someone was having difficulty. Mickey exhaled angrily as he dismantled his gun again.

            “The safety goes on the back,” Keller said.

            Mickey glanced over his shoulder. The gun was halfway remade again, the safety in the palm of his hand. A thousand snarky comments ran through Mickey’s mind, but instead of saying any of them, he simply snapped the safety back into place and then proceeded to finish putting together the rest of the gun without looking away from Keller. He snapped the safety on, spun it around in his hand, and then offered the handle to the sergeant.

            “I think I got it,” Mickey said.

            Keller smiled. It was the kind of smile that makes a person want to knock out every single one of those shiny white teeth one by one until all that’s left behind is a bloody mess. Keller offered the gun back without so much as a word of praise. Mickey nearly swore in the man’s face.

            The exercise only continued for ten more minutes. It was hard for an exercise to take time when the sergeant insisted on doing everything for his soldiers. Then they moved on to a second exercise: aiming. Mickey walked out halfway through the lecture.

            He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. The smoke was bitter against his lungs and the paper tasted off. He dropped it on the ground after only one drag, watching as the embers sputtered out in the dry grass.

            Footsteps came from behind him and he turned. Denny stood there, hands in his pockets, trying his best not to look shocked that Mickey had walked out. “Hey,” he said.

            “What?” Mickey asked.

            “Sergeant sent me out to get you.”

            “He’s not my fucking sergeant.”

            Denny swallowed. “He’s... better than Sergeant Gallagher.”

            “He’s better?” Mickey repeated. He forced out a harsh laugh and kicked the dead cigarette butt towards Denny. It skittered on the grass and barely made it a foot. “Sergeant Fake Smile of the treat-everyone-like-incompetent-toddlers club is better than Ian? He strikes you as better? Fuck. I thought you wanted to live through this war.”

            “I’m going to. I was sent out because he said I had the proper aim down.”

            “Keller’ll kill you.”

            “Mickey-”

            “It’s true. Did you see him in there? Fixing everyone’s mistakes? Walking around like he’s some higher power that’ll take care of us? He can’t take care of fucking anyone in Vietnam. He can’t fix all their mistakes before they get blown to bits in the middle of the goddamned jungle. It’s been less than three fucking hours and he’s already managed to teach most of the men in there how to die while offering minimal resistance. He’s making fucking cannon fodder.”

            “It’s been three hours.”

            “I’ve seen enough.”

            “Are you coming back in?”

            Mickey stared at Denny for a long moment and then walked straight passed him. Denny followed at his heels as Mickey walked back into the mess hall. Keller smiled and said, “Look who decided to join us. Cadet-”

            The rest of his speech was shut out by the door to the kitchen closing behind Mickey. He looked at the shocked chef, standing behind a large, steaming vat of god-knows-what, and said, “I need breakfast.”

            “Not until the sergeant says.”

            “It’s for the fucking sergeant,” Mickey snapped.

            The chef hesitated and then, when Mickey took a threatening step forward, turned from the vat. He started messing with a stove on the other side and then turned with a plate in his hands. Scrambled eggs and bacon were offered to Mickey.

            Mickey took the plate without another word and stalked out the back door. He headed towards Ian’s tent and then quickly stepped back when he saw two uniformed men leaving the tent. They were whispering to each other. The only words Mickey caught were _sick, dangerous,_ and _risk._ He waited for them to pass before heading into Ian’s tent.

            Ian was sitting shirtless on the cot, the blankets covering one of his legs. He was in the middle of falling back into the cot, his eyes already half-closed, probably due to the protest of the dark circles under them.

            He paused his motion when Mickey entered. Then he held out a hand for the plate. Mickey gave it over, watching as Ian dug in half-heartedly, moving more food around the plate than he put in his mouth. Mickey took the chair from the desk again and sat in front of Ian. There was silence while Ian ate.

            “Thanks,” Ian said as he put the plate aside.

            “Why were they here?”

            Ian blinked slowly. His eyes seemed unwilling to stay open. “Just the doctor.”

            “Doctor?”

            He shrugged. “He comes around sometimes.”

            Mickey had no idea what to say to that. He licked his lips, looking for a response or a change of topic as his stomach grumbled. Ian reached over to the plate and picked up a piece of bacon he hadn’t eaten. He offered it to Mickey.

            Mickey grabbed it and tore in. Then he took the plate and finished it off. Almost all of the food was still on it. It had just been shifted to another place. A pang of guilt dinged in Mickey’s stomach as he cleaned off the eggs and realized he should have left some there in case Ian was hungry later.

            “Can I ask you something?”

            Mickey looked up. “Sure.”

            “Do I scare you?”

            “Scare me?” Mickey repeated. Ian nodded. Mickey snorted. “No.”

            “The general said that whoever reported me was scared of me.”

            “Clearly they don’t know scared,” Mickey replied. When Ian gave him no reply other than to roll back onto the bed, his entire body surrendering, Mickey added, “I know what it looks like when someone wants to hurt you. When someone _can_ hurt you. And I don’t believe you’d hurt a fucking fly.”

            Ian scoffed. “I’m a sergeant in the army. You think I got here by letting flies land on my plate?”

            “I think you got here because they knew you wouldn’t shoot.”

            Ian turned his head to look at Mickey. One of his eyes was hidden in the folds of the pillow, but the other was fixed on Mickey’s face. Mickey let his smile hang there, the easy mockery something that he was good at, something that he felt might be helping.

            Ian asked, “When’s the last time I scared you?”

            The question hung in the air, heavy in the silence. Mickey considered lying, but with his eyes fixed on the exhausted sergeant, he couldn’t find the ability anymore. “Two days ago,” Mickey admitted. “When you wouldn’t get up.”

            “Not that kind of scared.”

            Mickey shrugged. “That’s the last time you scared me.”

            Ian was silent for a moment, his eyes searching for something on the roof of the tent. “Then let me rephrase. When’s the last time you were scared of me?”

            “When you told me to run those laps on the first day.”

            “Not when I nearly shot Miller?”

            Mickey laughed. “It was a fake fucking gun. And by that point I’d figured you out.”

            “Figured what out?”

            “That look in your eyes,” Mickey said, “it wasn’t the same as the ones I’d seen before. Sure, you’d do worse than send me around the camp a couple of times, but you wouldn’t hurt me. You wouldn’t hurt anyone. You’re here to protect us and sometimes... sometimes that means you’ve got to take things a little too far. And I get that. I can get behind that. But I know you’re not going to take a swing at any of us anytime soon. So I’m not scared of you.”

            “The others are.”

            “The others are fucking idiots who have never been hit in their lives. They don’t know the difference between intimidation and tough love.”

            Ian was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “You’re dismissed, Milkovich.”

            “I’m not going back to Keller.”

            Ian shrugged. “Fuck if I care.”

            “Mind if I just sit here?”

            Ian didn’t reply, so Mickey took it as a no. He turned around in the chair and started rummaging through some of Ian’s stuff. He found a book, a big fat one with a title several words long. He found a bookmark wedged halfway through it and a pen mark scrawled near the bottom of the left page. He glanced towards the marked off point, looked at Ian –now curled up and facing the wall– and cleared his throat.

            He started to read from the marked spot on the page and Ian didn’t complain. He read until he got to the end of the book and his voice rasped against his throat. Shifting his feet off of the bed, he got out of the chair and leaned over the cot. Ian’s eyes were closed and his breathing was even. Mickey placed the bookmark back in its original spot before heading out of the tent.


	21. Chapter 21

Five days passed. Mickey came by sometimes. Ian thought it had been five days. He thought that was how many times he had seen Mickey. Once a day. One meal a day. One moment slightly awake in a day. Five times. Five days. It made sense.

            Five days and he hadn’t gotten out of bed. Five days and the only person coming to check on him was the one who hated him. Five days and the only reason anyone cared that he wasn’t there was because they might die without him. Selfish reasons. Reasons not connected to him. He was separate. He was alone. Five days alone.

            He got out of bed. The cot was starting to leave odd grooves in his pale flesh, creating red lines that didn’t go away when rubbed. His back was sore, his legs were cramped, and his eyes had finally tired of being closed.

            None of that would matter in a few minutes.

            Ian started rummaging through the drawers of his desk. He was sure that there was a revolver in their somewhere. It had been a parting gift from his family. A joke. Something about the army not having guns that knew what war looked like. The revolver had been in their neighbourhood so it had been closer to war than the shiny new guns that the army pulled out of their asses. Ian had laughed. It had been funny then. Now it just seemed to mock him. A gun that had seen war for a man too cowardly to face it. It was fitting. Poetic. Or ironic. Or both.

            He pulled it out from underneath a stack of papers and checked the bullets. Full. He spun it anyways. Everyone always spun it. The sound was like a train running down the railway tracks –steady, chaotic and too fast to stop. He shoved the mechanism back into place and turned towards the calendar on his tent wall. Sure, half-naked women weren’t really the best representation of his brother –he would have been surprised if Lip had managed to have seen more than one of them in his life (and with this comment running through his head, he could hear his brother swearing in protest through the veil)– but it was the only thing of his that Ian had. The rest of it had gone back to Chicago. Back to the family. Ian hadn’t wanted it haunting him. Now he wished something more than a busty broads calendar could haunt him.

            With a sigh, he raised the gun to his head. The barrel was cold against his forehead like a final kiss from death. He closed his eyes even though the muscles in them protested against his decision. The darkness let in the voices of the ghosts. His brother, mainly, but also all the men he had sent to war who had come back in coffins. Men he had promised would make it back alive, if not intact.

            His finger braced against the trigger. Then it shook, violently, to the point where Ian feared he would set off the gun by accident and shoot himself before he was ready. Before he was ready. All those men were out there before they were ready. Lip had been out there before he was ready. Two months wasn’t long enough to prepare someone for a war. Two months wasn’t long enough to potty train a puppy.

            The entire gun started to shake and Ian took a deep breath. He was just about to rest it back against his temple when he heard the words, “Holy fuck.” Ian turned and lowered the gun slightly.

            Mickey stood at the front of the tent, a plate of food in his hand. Odd. Ian hadn’t thought the next day had come. Or... had it only been two days? The third meal of the second day. He tried to remember how long it had been since Mickey had read to him. He couldn’t. Time blurred like a continuum of darkness through his mind.

            “Ian...” Mickey began. He swallowed hard. “What the fuck?”

            “Go away.”

            “Were you gonna pull the trigger?”

            “The fuck do you care?”

            Mickey swore, his voice rattling. He dropped the plate of food on the nearest flat surface, ignorant of the fact that it splattered halfway across the tent. “What do I fucking care? Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve got a goddamn gun to your head!”

            “My head, my business.”

            “You selfish fucking bastard.”

            “Get the fuck out.” Ian spat. He raised the gun back to his forehead, but his arm was still shaking. He couldn’t hear Lip’s voice anymore. He wondered if his ghost had been scared away by Mickey. The gun shook against his temple. It’s cold was no longer a kiss but a naked, screeching caress from a pile of bones.

            “Put down the fucking gun,” Mickey demanded.

            “Get out, soldier. That’s an order.”

            “I don’t take your fucking orders!”

            Ian moved his hand and pointed the gun straight at Mickey. His nerves calmed as he leveled the barrel with Mickey’s head. He stopped shaking. “You take my fucking orders. Leave, soldier.”

            “You’re not gonna fucking shoot me.”

            “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

            Mickey stepped forward until the gun rested right against his forehead. He stared up into Ian’s eyes. “Do it then.”

            For a long moment, Ian didn’t move. Then he started to shake again, his whole body going limp, begging to be brought back into bed. Mickey caught the hand with the gun and gently removed the handle from Ian’s grip. He flicked the safety on and then tossed the gun as far away as possible. He hesitated and then pressed a hand against Ian’s face.

            “Hey,” Mickey said. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

            Ian met his eyes for a moment. “Nothing’s okay.”

            “Ian-”

            “Would you leave me the fuck alone?”

            “No.” Mickey dropped his hand as Ian moved away to sit on the cot again. He explained, “Even if I take that gun with me, I don’t know that there’s not more in here. I do know that there’s about a hundred sitting in a shed not too far from here. So, no, I’m not going to fucking leave you alone when I walked in on you with a goddamn revolver to your head. What kind of fucking idiot do you take me for?”

            “Mickey-”

            “Don’t.”

            Ian swallowed and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to feel this anymore.”

            “Feel what?”

            “Anything. I don’t want to feel any of it anymore. I don’t want to feel responsible for my brother. I don’t want to feel guilty. I don’t want to feel sad. I don’t want to feel. I just want... I want everything to go away and everything to stop happening to me and I... I can’t lie in this bed any longer.”

            “But you can lie in a grave?”

            “Once I’m gone, I’m gone. Don’t tell me you believe in anything else.”

             “You can’t.”

            “Keller doesn’t want you to die, either. It’s better if the soldiers last a couple years so that they don’t have to train too many new ones too fast.”

            “Keller’s a piece of fucking trash, but that’s not what I meant.”

            “Then what’d you mean? It’s a waste of the information you have? You can’t ruin my life if I don’t have a life? It’s too hard to watch me kill myself when you’d rather do it yourself? Go get the gun. You can pull the trigger.”

            “You’re a fucking idiot.”

            “Tell me something I don’t know.”

            Ian stared at Mickey for a long time. He was completely still other than the slight shaking of his body as he stood in the middle of the room, exposed, easy for Ian to watch. Mickey ran a hand across his mouth and then said, “Do you want to know what I was going to talk to you about?”

            “What?”

            “That night. When I walked in on...” Mickey made a nonsensical hand motion and moved on. “Do you want to know why I needed to talk to you? Why I came here?”

            Ian let his words sit in the silence for a moment. He had no idea what they were doing there. What they had to do with his desire to die. But part of him was curious why Mickey had come ripping through the night without an invitation, seeking out Ian all on his own. Like he had hoped all his soldiers would be comfortable with doing. Part of him still ached knowing that he hadn’t been able to help Mickey that night. That he had lost Mickey that night.

            “Sure,” Ian said.

            “The letters. You had four fucking letters. One of them written in fucking crayon. And all of them said that someone loved you. That someone cared about you. That someone wanted you to come home. Four fucking letters from the four fucking family members you have.”

            “I have five.”

            “I have six. Seven, if you count the whore carrying my baby. So I’ve got you beat. And do you know how many fucking letters I got?” Mickey asked. “Zero. Not even a ‘where did I leave my cigarettes’. And you had four people telling you that they loved you, that they needed you to come home in one piece, and you’re not even in any fucking danger. So I came here to read those letters again. I wanted to know how it was fucking possible that some kid who grew up just a couple blocks away in the same shitty place with the same shitty system could end up with so many people who loved him. Because I have fucking none. And you have four. Four out of five ain’t half bad.”

            “The letters are on the table.”

            “You’re missing the fucking point,” Mickey said.

            Ian stared at him blankly. His fingers were itching for the gun. He had calmed down. He was certain he could do it now. A trigger was just a pressure point and his head was just a target. He might as well as been one of those black outlines at a shooting range.

            “Here you are, ready not to come back to them.”

            Ian was silent.

            “Four people want you back! Four!” Mickey shouted. “How do you not get that? How do you not get that there are four people out there worried out of their fucking minds despite the fact that you’re not going to war? So many people want you back in their lives. And you’re ready to just throw away everything they want in the world. Don’t you even fucking care what they want?”

            “It’s not about them.”

            “Then what’s it about? Is it about the one person that you can’t go home to? Because, quite honestly, fuck him. He’s gone. He’s been gone for a while now and you’re still fucking here. You haven’t been expecting to see him again for a while, so tell me why it matters now. Why does it matter more now than it did a few days ago?”

            “Fuck you.”

            “Then fuck me. Fuck the world.  Fuck everything. But don’t fuck with the four fucking people in this world who love you and are scared for you. Fuck everything else, but don’t fuck them.”

            Ian shook his head. “You don’t get it.”

            “Explain it.”

            “I can’t.”

            Mickey licked his lips and looked around the room. “You got something else I can read?”

            “No.”

             Ian waited as Mickey looked around the room helplessly.

            “You can leave.”

            “I’m not coming tomorrow morning to deliver eggs to a blood stain on the floor.”

            Ian shrugged. “Then don’t come.”

            “Fuck you.”

            “What do you want from me?”

            “You made me a promise,” Mickey said. “You promised me that you would get me home alive.”

            Ian smiled sadly. “You believed me?”

            “I haven’t believed a promise since the day I was born. But I’m not the only one you said that to. You said it to every man out there and some of them... they don’t understand broken promises. They don’t understand that coming home in a coffin might be better for some people. They want to get home alive. They want to believe that you’re the one person in this world that can do that for them. You can help them beat the odds. You can help them walk off that plane instead of being carried. And whether you still want to keep it or not, they believe that promise. And you did promise. So maybe you should get the fuck out of bed and make sure Keller doesn’t get them all killed.”

            “I can’t stop anyone from getting killed.”

            “But you can make them feel safe.”

            “No one’s safe, Mickey.”

            “All I’m asking is that you tuck them in with a bedtime story,” Mickey said. “I’m not asking you to believe in fairies.”

            Ian stared at him for a long time and then nodded. “Tell them bedtime stories. Tell them they’re not going to die in Vietnam. Toe the party line. I can sell my soul to the devil. I’ve done it before.”

            “Ian-”

            “I’m tired.”    

            “You actually going to sleep?”

            “You want to stay here and watch me?” Ian said. He had thought the words sounded weary, forlorn, but Mickey seemed to take them as a challenge. He pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down on it, facing the cot. He gestured towards it.

            “That’s just fucking creepy,” Ian said.

            “I’m not leaving you alone.”

            “I’m still alone.”

            There was a long moment of silence as the two stared at each other. Ian licked his upper lip, his legs shaking. He only wanted to crawl back into bed and use up the last bits of energy he had in the muscles that kept his eyes closed. But he was also cold. And he didn’t want to feel cold anymore. It reminded him of the tip of the gun and the gun was still calling him from across the room. And he had a promise to keep. The gun could wait until these men shipped out.

            The words came out before Ian could stop them. He knew the response before he posed the question, knew he was forfeiting what little defense he had against the gun, but he was so cold and the cot didn’t have body heat. “Lie down with me?”

            For a moment, Ian was sure he had frozen time with four words. Mickey was completely still, not even blinking. Then, very slowly, his tongue played across his lower lip. He nodded and moved awkwardly off of the chair.

            Ian laid down, holding up the covers so Mickey could scoot in beside him. Ian pressed up against the wall, trying to give Mickey as much room as possible. The covers wrapped around both of them. The fronts of Mickey’s knees fit into the backs of his and Mickey’s breath was cool on the back of his neck.

            Their only contact was at the knees for a long, desperate moment before Mickey’s arm came around Ian, pulling him close. Mickey was smaller than him, much smaller, but Ian fit into him perfectly. He exhaled as their bodies relaxed against one another. For the first time in a long time, Ian drifted off to sleep wanting to wake up in the morning.


	22. Chapter 22

Mickey woke first. It took him a second to reconcile with the feeling of warmth and safety that surrounded him. His eyelashes brushed against the back of Ian’s neck. A shiver went up his spine as he realized how close they were, every crook of his body fitting perfectly into Ian’s.

            He didn’t want to breathe, in case just that tiny movement would break the puzzle pieces they had become. Then, very slowly, he shifted back. He breathed in the scent of Ian –must, cigarettes, dirt and dust– and his body rumbled in response. He stopped himself from taking a deep breath, knowing that it wouldn’t bring the calm he was expecting it to.

            Hesitating for just a moment, he stared at the back of Ian’s neck. He felt the gentle pulse of Ian’s breath, moving his arm up and down since it lay across his chest. Mickey shuddered as he pressed forward slightly and brushed his lips against the back of Ian’s neck. He planted the lightest of kisses against his skin, breathing him in, and trying his best to memorize everything about the moment. So he would be able to pretend that waking up next to his future wife felt the same.

            He slipped off of the cot and stretched his arms into the air. He turned to look at Ian, still sleeping peacefully. He had to wait for him to wake up, make sure he got out of bed. He ran through a mental list of things he had to do that morning while he watched Ian sleep, waiting for the horn to blow.

            When it did, Ian didn’t even flinch in his sleep. Mickey waited for a second, looking for any slight shift, but saw none. He stepped forward and shook Ian’s shoulder. That got a grumble out of him.

            “Get up,” Mickey said gently.

            Ian mumbled something indiscernible. Well, not completely indiscernible. Mickey got the word “fuck” loud and clear.

            “You said you’d get up today.”

            “No, I didn’t.”

            “You promised me you’d give them bedtime stories.”

            “Tell them not to believe in fairies.”

            “Fuck you,” Mickey replied. “Get up.”

            Ian groaned loudly and rolled over. He didn’t get up, just lay facing Mickey, still curled into a ball. His eyes scanned Mickey casually, the slightest smile perched on his lips. “So, how long?” Ian asked.

            “What?”

            “How long did you stay in bed?”

            Mickey opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t find the words. He had the horrible sensation that his cheeks were going bright red and he tried his best to swallow his pounding heart.

            Ian said, “Come on. I know you didn’t last the whole night cuddling with a fag. Tell me. How long after I fell asleep did you get up?”

            “Fuck you.”

            “I want to know.”

            “Get the fuck out of bed.”

            Ian stared at him for a long moment. “Hand me my boots.”

            Mickey turned around and found the shiny black boots lying on their sides by the desk. He picked them up and threw them at the end of the cot. Ian rolled into an upright position and slipped his feet inside of them. He started doing up the laces.

            “You’re not gonna change?”

            “Nope.”

            “You’ve been wearing that same uniform for nearly a week. Slept in it. Haven’t washed it. Haven’t fucking showered.”

            “I’m not changing.”

            “You should-”

            “Do I smell?”

            Mickey swallowed. Ian’s eyes met his with a spark like lightning and for a second he was sure that he hadn’t woken  up first. Ian had been awake the whole time. Ian had felt him kiss him. Then Mickey shook the thought from his head. Ian had been still as a corpse. He had no idea.

            “Like a fucking dump,” Mickey replied.

            Ian considered that for a moment and then shrugged. “Only means I’ll be even scarier.”

            “What’re you gonna tell ‘em?”

            “What did the general say?”

             “Just that you’d be fine.” Mickey watched Ian as he got to his feet. He could see his body protesting against the action, like the bed was the only part of the world it was sure it fit in. He said, “You gonna expand on that?”

            “Nope.”

            “It happen a lot?”

            “What?”

            Mickey shrugged. His arms were crossed tight against his chest and he was doing his best to chew a hole through his bottom lip. “Sometimes my mom... she takes too many Aspirins and she always says it’s an accident but... I started hiding the guns from her when I was six.”

            Ian was still for a moment. Then he faked a smile and turned towards the tent door. “You don’t gotta hide the guns from me, Mickey.”

            Nothing about that sentence made Mickey feel better. He followed Ian out of the tent, trailing behind so it didn’t look like they were coming to the clearing together. Of course, it had taken long enough to get Ian up and dressed that they were the only two people not there. And Keller was waiting for the perfect square of forty to be filled before he sent the men on their run.

            Mickey slid into place just as Ian started speaking to Keller. He had a challenging smile on his face and he offered a hand for Keller to shake. Keller was put off, but he shook his hand all the same and said something that looked like, “Glad you made it back.”

            Then Keller turned to them and said, “All right, men. It looks like your drill sergeant is back and ready for duty.” Silence met this statement. “I’ll be around for the next few days until the army can arrange to take me out of here, but Sergeant Gallagher is in charge.” He almost winked at the end of his sentence, but caught himself just in time. Mickey spat.

            Ian stepped forward. “Thank you, Keller. Now, men. You know the drill. Start running.”

            Mickey stayed back for just long enough to make sure that Ian’s carefully executed ‘fine’ face was intact. Then he caught up with the others and kept pace. It wasn’t long before Wells met up with him, slowing his run to end up by Mickey’s side.

            “What’d you do?” Wells asked.

            “What?”

            Wells rolled his eyes. “Come on. Everyone knows you’re the only person here who gives half a fuck about Gallagher. So what’d you do? How’d you get him to stop sucking his thumb?”

            “You’re his boyfriend.”

            “Fuck buddies and boyfriends are very different things.”

            Mickey’s hands curled into fists, but the bruise below Wells’ eye reminded him that he had already hit him. He itched to hit him again, just to make his eyes match. It would be doing the world an aesthetic service really.

            “You give him what he wants?” Wells goaded. “Didn’t see you leave his tent last night. He keep you until morning? He’s good at that. Staying up. Keeping going. I bent you liked being bent over like some bitch-”

            “I think it’s funny,” Mickey said calmly, “that we’re at a camp to learn how to kill people. Two months to teach us how to shoot someone in the fucking face. Guns everywhere. I’m sure accidents happen.”

            “You threatening me, Milkovich?”

            “No. If I was threatening you, I’d tell you that you’re not the first person to try to fuck with me. And then I’d add that everyone else who has, is in the fucking ground.”

            “Scary.”

            Mickey shook his head. “Nope. Just the truth.”

            He stared at Wells for a long moment until Wells laughed and ran faster. Mickey spat. His stomach twisted inside of him, nearly begging him to stop running and go throw up. Images from the last night flashed through his mind. Crawling into the bed beside Ian. Fitting their knees together. Their feet pressed against each other. That morning and Mickey’s lips against the back of Ian’s neck. The smell of cigarettes.

            He rounded the corner to finish the lap and saw Ian standing beside Keller, a cigarette pressed between his lips. He removed it and blew the smoke into the air. It struck Mickey how much he wanted a drag just then. Not of the cigarette. Nicotine wasn’t a drug strong enough to get Mickey’s heart racing. He wanted the taste of Ian against his lips. The cigarette, musk, dirt, dust mixture playing across his tongue.

            Ian disappeared from view and Mickey spat again. His father’s words started to run through his head and disgust shivered through Mickey. He shuddered against his own thoughts, his own bodily responses, and against the image that kept playing against the backs of his eyelids. It was a piece of a dream. The last thing he remembered before waking up.

            In his dream, he hadn’t simply crawled into bed with Ian. He hadn’t simply kissed the back of his neck. They had laid down facing each other and kissed. And that kiss, the image of Ian’s lips on his, of his taste finally clearly inside Mickey’s mouth, was beating against Mickey’s brain. The dream was trying to become a reality through sheer force of will.

            Mickey rounded the next lap. Ian was still standing there with his cigarette. Mickey’s stomach turned and he veered off the path. He ran straight past the two sergeants, not even glancing their way, and headed straight into the bathrooms.

            He dropped to his knees in front of the toilet and vomited. When he stopped, he shoved his fingers down his throat until more came out. He was determined to wash the taste of Ian from him. To quit Ian cold turkey. It was an addiction. Just an awful, heathenistic addiction, that Mickey could cure himself of. His father always said it could be beaten out of him. He could beat it out of himself.

            When Mickey’s stomach was empty and the acid was burning in his throat, he rested his forehead against the edge of the toilet. His entire body shook. And, after a long moment of trying not to, he started to cry.


	23. Chapter 23

Ian tried to let the cigarette steady him. At the very least, he tried to pretend that the cigarette was steadying him. Or that he didn’t need steadying at all. Keller was watching over his shoulder, which was something Ian could have easily handled had he not been wondering if Mickey was okay.

            He had watched him head into the bathroom and had itched to go after him. But Keller had made some comment, the exact words of which were lost to him now, and he had stayed put. The men were rounding their last lap and then target practice would begin. The whole thing had been set up. Maybe Keller had said that target practice had to be set up.

            Ian dropped the cigarette on the ground. Crushing it with his boot, he glanced back at the bathrooms one last time, hoping that Mickey might come out. Then he stepped in front of the shooting targets and waited as the men finished their push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks. When they all stood, he cleared his throat.

            “Most of you, I’m told, have shown enough proficiency with a fake gun to learn how to shoot a real one,” Ian said. He glanced over the faces of the men. Most of them looked nervous. A couple of them looked excited. “Jenkins, Hart, Massey, Lincoln, and Johnson. You’re still on plastic guns.”

            “What?” Jenkins said.

            Massey cleared his throat. “I think he means, excuse us, sir?”

            “Guns are not toys,” Ian said. “And when you’re eyes light up like you’re a toddler on a Christmas morning at the mention of them, I’m not gonna let you touch one. You’re not going to touch one until you know what you’re doing with it. Until you understand that shooting someone, hurts. It takes the air out of you. It hurts you just as much as it does them. You’re excited to get out there and kill? You’re going to be the first one dead. So pick up the plastics and wipe those stupid grins off your faces.”

            Keller cleared his throat.

            Ian turned to him, one eyebrow raised. “Yes, sergeant?”

            “Perhaps it would be best to let them train on the real guns, like the others.”

            Ian smiled. “Perhaps it would be best to not question my authority in front of my men.”

            “I’m just suggesting that if you’re trying to build a team,” Keller said, “that they might feel left out of that team if they’re the only ones still using plastic guns.”

            There was silence for a long moment as Ian stared at him. He let the smile slip so that it was just a little bigger before turning back to the group and saying, “You know, Keller is absolutely right.” The five who had been called out smiled. Ian continued, “So you’re all going to use plastic guns today and maybe tomorrow, as a team, you can decide that guns aren’t toys.”

            He stared at the group for a moment and then nodded towards the cases of plastic guns. With some grumbling, the soldiers started to move.

            “We need to train them on-”

            “I need to train them on the real guns,” Ian said, turning. He looked down his nose at Keller, every inch of him humming with exhaustion. “ _I_ need to make sure that they’re ready for war. I need to make sure that they don’t get killed out there. Knowing that guns aren’t here for them to fire into a crowd like some whacko in a horror movie is part of keeping them alive. That’s my job. Your job is to make sure that I don’t kill any of them before they get to Vietnam.” Keller blinked. “Don’t worry. The only person I’m thinking about murdering today is you.”

            Then he stepped away and started moving through the ranks. They were lined up in rows of eight, pointing fake guns at the targets. Ian shouted corrections. He rolled his eyes at mistakes. He shouted at Keller when he tried to adjust a soldier’s grip for him. The soldier could correct it himself. He knew what he was doing wrong.

            All of that Ian did on sore feet with a brain that was yelling at him to close his eyes. Close his eyes right there. Close his eyes forever. He pulled another cigarette out of his pack and took a long drag. It wasn’t until the last group was up and the last line was repeating their first person that Ian remembered to worry about Mickey.

            His heart skipped several beats at the thought. He glanced back towards the bathroom, all his nerves on end. The momentary calm of the cigarette was shot. He stumbled over the sentence that was halfway out of his lips –he couldn’t even remember what he’d been saying. He glanced back at the soldier in front of him and corrected the first thing he saw. Then he continued down the line.

            When the soldier’s switched, he came around to the back of the line and tapped Denny on the soldier.

            “Sergeant, sir,” Denny said. He saluted clumsily. “Was I doing something wrong? I don’t think this is a game, sir. No, sir. I just smiled that time because you said I was holding the gun right and-”

            “You’re fine, Barber,” Ian cut in. His head was spinning. Too much smoke. Or too little. “I need you to do something for me.”

            “Anything, sir. Just name it, sir.”

            “Go check on Milkovich.”

            Denny blinked, then looked around. “Right. Where is he, sir?”

            “I saw him run into the bathrooms.”

            Denny didn’t move.

            “I’d like you to do it now, Barber.”

            “I know, it’s just...” Denny trailed off. Ian raised an eyebrow at him. Denny sighed. “Mickey kinda makes a point to go to the bathroom when no one else is there. Self-conscious or something, I guess. If he’s in there, I don’t think he wants me bothering him.”

            “He ducked out of the run. He might be sick. Can you go check on him, please?”

            Denny nodded. “Yes, sir.” He started off towards the bathroom at a jog.

            Ian turned back to the situation at hand, even though his thoughts were racing. Keller had stepped in again and winked when he saw him looking. Like Ian should have been glad that he was edging in on his job. Normally something like that would have made Ian angry, but he was just so tired. He still managed to stop Keller from over-helping, but let him take over most of the instruction.

            Soon Denny came running back from the bathroom and he skidded to a stop next to Ian. “I’m back, sir.”

            “I can see that, Barber.” Ian blew out smoke. He glanced sideways at Denny. “And?”

            Denny shrugged. “Says he’s sick.”

            “But?”

            Denny made a non-committal motion with his shoulders and hands and let out a noise halfway between a grunt and a squeak. Ian simply stared at him until he sighed, and relented. “I think he might have been crying.”

            Ian’s heart dropped into his stomach. He nodded once and thanked Denny before sending him back to his spot in line. Keller was adjusting a man’s grip on the gun. Ian’s voice caught in his throat as he started to yell at him to stop. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Taking a deep breath, he thought to try again, but then gave up on it. He glanced back towards the bathrooms but stayed put. Mickey wanted him to be in control of the camp. The best thing he could do for him was take control of the camp. And he couldn’t even do that.

            Gulping in air, Ian bit down on his bottom lip to stop the tears that were pooling just behind his eyes. He could feel them pressing there, begging to come out. _There’s nothing to cry about. Nothing to cry about. Take a deep breath and let it out._ Ian shook, not taking the breath he needed, and remained silent through Keller’s over instruction until the men were released for lunch. When Keller clapped him on the back, an odd congratulations for stepping out of the way, Ian nearly fell over.

            The minute all the men’s backs were turned, Ian headed away from the mess hall and back to his tent. His stomach rumbled, but he couldn’t handle food at the moment. Just the thought made him want to throw up.

            He threw open the tent flap, fell into the cot, and rolled into the covers. He pulled them up over his mouth, using them like hyperventilators use a paper bag. The tears started to trickle out and soon he was down to full blown sobs. His entire body shook despite its exhaustion.

            Ian drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the day. He was just on the edge of closing his eyes again when he heard his tent flap move. He tried his best to look like he was asleep, but the effort of controlling his breathing just made him shake again.

            Mickey cleared his throat. His presence was warm but still at the door of the tent. It was very possible that he hadn’t even stepped inside. Ian wanted to look up at him, but couldn’t find the strength.

            “I just wanted to say good job today.”

            “You weren’t there.”

            “Yeah, but you made it to lunch. Six hours better than the last few days.”

            Ian sniffed. He tried to turn, but couldn’t. His voice choked, he said, “What happened to you?”

            “Don’t worry about it.”

            “Mickey-”

            Ian let his sentence fall into the air as the tent flap closed. Cold blew through the tent, telling him that Mickey was gone. He tried to close his eyes, but his sleepiness was gone. Instead his heart pounded against his ribs, wondering what he wasn’t supposed to worry about. Worrying about what he wasn’t supposed to worry about.

            Ian didn’t sleep again until early in the morning.


	24. Chapter 24

Mickey woke before the horn went off. The late winter chill was working its way into his bones, making it harder and harder to convince himself that the army-issue blanket was all he needed to keep warm.

            He rolled out of the cot and put on his boots. Throwing on a shirt, he headed out of the tent and towards Ian. When he had woken, Ian had been the first thought in his mind. Red hair, green-blue eyes, and that charming half-smile that was becoming darker and darker every day. The horn would go off at any moment and Ian would turn over in his bed, unwilling to get up. And Mickey would pull him out if he had to.

            He came to Ian’s tent and hesitated. The same rolling sensation from yesterday came back to his stomach. His entire body thrummed with the anticipation of seeing Ian, sleepy from the morning, grumbling into his blanket, still alive. His mind wasn’t strong enough to stop itself from wandering towards what Ian would be wearing. If he would be wearing a shirt. What it would be like to run his hands over those abs...

            Mickey swallowed hard as last night’s dinner reared up in his throat. He flipped up the tent flap and poked his head inside. Keeping his feet outside the tent would keep him grounded. Distance between him and Ian would keep him grounded. He glanced towards the cot.

            It was empty. The covers were thrown back, crumpled at the end of the bed. Not something his military-strict sergeant would do. Mickey swallowed and looked around the rest of the room. No blood, as far as he could tell, and no body. That was a plus. The only question remaining was whether or not the gun was still in the room.

            “Ian?” Mickey called tentatively. He lifted one foot off the ground and moved it into the tent. “Ian?”

            “Back here.”

            Mickey shot out of the tent and tried to look over the top. He couldn’t see a thing, so he headed around to find Ian a few yards away, smoking a cigarette. He was facing away from Mickey, looking out towards the bloody sunrise as smoke wafted away from his mouth.

            “The fuck are you doing?” Mickey asked.

            Ian glanced over his shoulder, that half-smile glinting in the new sunlight. “Taking a smoke. What the fuck’s it look like?”

            “And you got out of your tent for that?”

            Ian shrugged. “I don’t like the smoke crowding me.”

            “So a cigarette’s more important to you than your bed?”

            Ian shrugged again.

            Mickey swallowed the sigh in his throat. He could feel his heart slowing down as he thought over and over again, _He’s fine. He’s alive. He’s fine._

The sun creaked over the edge of the horizon. Its fire edged out into shades of pink and purple the higher Mickey looked into the clouds. The smoke from Ian’s cigarette blew towards him, sharp and sweet in the early morning air.

            Ian took another drag and then held it out to Mickey. For a long moment, Mickey just stared at it, memorizing the way that it sat between Ian’s fingers. He licked his bottom lip slowly, the ghost of Ian’s taste suddenly hot on his tongue. Every part of him suddenly burning brightly in the frostbitten air.

            “No,” Mickey managed. He coughed over the word. Ian shrugged and placed the cigarette back between his lips. He rolled it between them neatly, then took it out and breathed out smoke. Every inch of Mickey itched to get his hands on that cigarette, so he shoved his hands in his pocket and changed the subject. “How you feeling today?”

            “Fine.”

            Mickey cringed at the word. It echoed through his memories in his mother’s voice and his sister’s. In his own voice as it cracked over the words the first time his dad had broken his wrist. At least he had managed not to cry.

            “Don’t lie to me,” Mickey said.

            Ian glanced over at him.

            “No one’s ever fucking fine.”

            Ian nodded. He let the cigarette hang by his side, fiddling with it subconsciously. “I want to die a little less than I did yesterday. But I keep thinking about what it’d feel like to press the tip of this cigarette into my arm. Maybe see if that spark could jumpstart something in my brain. I keep thinking about Keller looking over my shoulder and I can’t decide whether I want to punch the guy in the face or just give up and let him take over.”

            “You can’t give up.”

            “Can’t punch him either.”

            Mickey was silent for a moment. “What exactly is the punishment for punching a sergeant in the face?”

            The smile came to Ian’s lips immediately and it was brighter than anything Mickey had seen before. “Well, I can tell you it won’t be the same as hitting Wells,” Ian said. Mickey snorted. “Knowing Keller, there’s a chance he’d press criminal charges. But they’re desperate for men in Vietnam. You might get away with kitchen duty for the rest of your training.”

            “I like the kitchen.”

            Ian gave him a look. “I am not condoning nor encouraging you to hit Sergeant Keller on my behalf.”

            “Fuck your behalf. I’ll hit the guy to shatter his stupid grin.”

            Ian laughed.

            Mickey smiled. It was a good sound to hear.

            “You sure you don’t want a drag?”

            The addict side of Mickey jumped at the chance. He looked down at the cigarette, like he had quit years ago and was about to face a firing squad. “Does the army still have firing squads?” Mickey asked.

            Ian blinked. “No.”

            Mickey took the cigarette. He went for it fast, trying to avoid lingering against Ian’s fingers, but time seemed to stop when their skin touched. And then the folds of his knuckles buzzed as if he had just pressed them up against a live wire. He moved the cigarette to his lips, already salivating at the thought of its taste.

            Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ian watching him. A spark flew through his haunting ocean eyes. A wave of nausea washed over Mickey again, his father’s voice suddenly screaming through his head, and he dropped the hand holding the cigarette. Shaking, he held it back out to Ian.

            “I’m trying to quit.”

            Ian was silent for a moment. “Brave man who quits a vice right before war.”

            “No,” Mickey replied. “Just a useless coward.”

            Before Ian had a chance to reply, the morning wakeup call sounded. Mickey turned away from the rising sun and headed towards the clearing without another word. His stomach was still turning and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep breakfast down, but maybe the run would sweat the feeling out of him. He didn’t know if butterflies liked tropical climates or frozen tundras, but he would do anything he could to kill them.


	25. Chapter 25

Ian made it the whole day. The dinner bell rang and he turned away from the mess hall, heading for his tent. He had only taken three steps before someone tapped him on the shoulder and he had to turn around.

            “I was hoping we could get dinner,” Keller said.

            “I have a lot to do.”

            “It’s about your job.”

            Ian stared at him for a moment. His heart was a dark weight in his chest and his eyelids were more interested in closing than looking into Keller’s ugly face. But he still nodded his head and said, “Tell me now.”

            “It’s not looking good.”

            “Why not?”

            “Most of the men don’t like you and the ones who do are still worried that you’re not mentally stable enough to run a unit after your brother’s death. They’re afraid you’re going to get them all killed.”

            “I’m going to get them all killed?”

            “Yes.”

            Ian was silent for a moment and then he nodded. “Keller, my men are idiots. And so are you.”

            He started to walk away, but Keller’s voice called him back.

            “Insulting me isn’t helping your case, Gallagher.”

            “Openly trying to steal my job isn’t helping you, Keller,” Ian replied. “So I’ll say whatever I want about you and you’re welcome to report it all back to headquarters. But when it comes down to it, I am in charge of this company. These are my men. They may not like me, but they respect me, and with me in charge, they actually fucking learn something. So I suggest you take your little report about my behaviour and my actions and my stability and you shove it up your ass.”

            “Or what?”

            “If you think I’m beyond giving you a black eye, you’re wrong.”

            Keller was silent for a long moment. “If you think the men will choose you, you’re crazy.”

            “If you think it’s their choice, you don’t understand the army,” Ian replied. “Now, I suggest you get out of my way and let me work, or I’ll have to report you for flagrantly wasting my valuable time. Do we understand each other, Keller?”

            “I understand that you’re wildly delusional.”

            Ian exhaled a laugh. “Good talking to you.”

            He turned and ignored Keller’s further attempts to antagonize him. His bones were weary. His entire body felt ready to collapse and the walk to his tent which used to feel like no more than a few steps, was now like running a marathon.

            He dragged his feet the whole way, opening the tent flap and then flopping down onto the cot. His thoughts raced. Keller was going to take over the platoon. He was going to let down Mickey. Every one of the men out there was going to get killed. He was going to be discharged from the military. Dishonourably. Due to mental illness, if he wasn’t careful. He had to be so much more fucking careful.

            Rolling over in the cot, he pressed his face up against the tent wall and breathed in the dullness of the canvas. He closed his eyes and tried to find something calming to focus on. Something that would interrupt the warring thoughts in his head. Something that might stop the tired tears from leaking out of his eyes.

            His mind settled on Mickey. More specifically, Mickey smiling from the hood of the broken truck. Hot and sweaty in the afternoon sun. Mickey, claiming to hate him, and then teasing him like they were best friends. Mickey happy, shining, with a look in his eyes that Ian liked to imagine was solely for him. A look that Ian was starting to believe _was_ solely for him.

            Despite the perfect effect of the image, Ian tried to crush it. He was in no place to give his heart to someone who wouldn’t take care of it. To someone who would be disgusted by the very gesture. No. Ian needed to protect his heart. He just couldn’t find any packing material stronger than Mickey’s smile.

            So Ian’s daydream slowly drifted into thoughts of kissing Mickey, then to the feeling of their skin against each other, until he drifted off to sleep right before their pants came off. He fell asleep with a goofy smile on his face.


	26. Chapter 26

Mickey stood at ease, waiting for Ian to come out and call them all to attention. It was early. He knew it was early. Half the men weren’t even out of bed yet. He had rolled out of his cot two hours earlier, his head swimming with impure thoughts, and gone for a run. He had already done twice the day’s laps. He was already thrumming to do more.

            His foot tapped hard against the grass. Part of him wanted to turn back to the tents and check on Ian. He kept glancing behind him. He knew he had time to walk back and wake the sergeant up. He knew he had time to wipe that stupid smile off of Keller’s face. But Wells was standing just next to him, eyes on the ground, but he smirked every time Mickey glanced over his shoulder. Mickey wasn’t sure who he was more likely to hit. Keller or Wells. But he was going to hit someone soon if some of the tension inside of him didn’t disappear.

            Along with the last of the stragglers, Ian walked out into the clearing. Mickey visibly exhaled, his foot stopping its rhythmic tapping. He watched as Ian jogged out towards Keller, a bitter smile on his face, and then turned towards the men as the last of them found their places.

            “ATTEN-SHUN.”

            Automatically, forty men’s legs snapped together and their hands went to their foreheads. Perfect unity. Ian smiled.

            “Get running.”

            Off they went. The group had stopped spreading out along the way. It clumped together, pulling along the less fit members and sending faster runners to the back to corral everyone towards the end. Mickey stayed firmly in the middle, listening as Denny blathered on, somehow not at all surprised that the man could hold an entire one-sided conversation while running without losing his breath. He must have been born with an extra lung.

            The platoon came back and immediately dropped into their mandatory calisthenics. They were a well-oiled machine. One mind, one body. The smile on Ian’s face was nearly blinding.

            As they moved towards the mess hall for breakfast, Mickey heard Keller speaking. “They’re weak. Slow. Play to the broken chains instead of the strongest ones. Is that how you taught them?”

            “I taught them to take care of each other,” Ian said.

            “It’s every man for himself out there.”

            “If you’re willing to get shot.”

            “Gallagher, I was against you in this post from the beginning. You’re too young, too idealistic, and you don’t understand-”

            “Excuse me,” Mickey cut in. He stopped right beside Ian, smiling bitterly at Keller. “But I think it’s about time you left our sergeant the fuck alone.”

            A couple of the men who had been nearest to Mickey on the march into the mess hall grinded to a halt. A few others looked back and stopped too. It was a very long moment before all of them stopped in their tracks, a few stomachs grumbling as they did so. Keller blinked in surprise.

            “What did you say to me, cadet?”

            “Cadet,” Mickey echoed. “Do you even my name?” He waited for a moment. “Ian knew all of our names within three days. And you’ve been here... what? Five, now? Do you know anyone’s name at all?”

            “That’s not my job.”

            “Your job is to prepare us to march to our deaths,” Mickey said. “Great job. Sure your mom’s really proud you got that one. At least you’re not getting shot at yourself, right?”

            “You’re out of line, cadet.”

            “You insult my sergeant, you insult me.”

            Keller nearly laughed, but then bit down on his bottom lip. It must have been the fiery look in Mickey’s eyes, warning that nothing he said was an empty threat. Keller turned, looking towards the other men spread out across the clearing.

            “All of you feel this way?” he asked.

            There was a long moment of silence. Mickey felt his heart dangle in place by a single thread, his breath caught in his throat. He was pretty sure he was the only person in the camp who liked Ian at all. Or at least, who liked him for more than his dick. He could lose the fight right then and there.

            Then, something amazing happened. Denny stepped up from his spot near the middle of the group and said, without a stammer, “Yes, sir. That’s the opinion of all of us.”

            Denny’s green eyes shot towards Mickey as his sentence ended and Mickey nodded at him. Then Wells called out from the back, “Well, maybe not all of us feel exactly that way about it.” The group spread out a little so that Keller could see him, a smile edging its way onto the sergeant’s face. Wells added, “Milkovich is a little too polite. Some of us think you should just go fuck yourself.”

            Keller’s smile was gone. Mickey caught his laugh right before it hit the air. “You’re a shitty sergeant,” someone shouted. “Gallagher’s our sergeant.” “You fuck with him, you fuck with us.” “Go back home!”

            The soldiers exploded into profanities until Ian held up a hand. All at once, the men quieted. Ian dropped his hand. “I think it’s time you gave up on getting me fired,” Ian said. “Don’t you think?”

            “You’re not ready for this.”

            “He’s a better sergeant than you are,” Mickey said. “And even if he wasn’t, he’s family. We’re all family.”

            Keller stared at Mickey for a long moment, his face blank. Then he stepped back and said, “If you’re all ready to die in the jungle, you’re welcome to die in the jungle.” Then he stormed off towards his tent.

            For a moment, everyone was still and silent. Ian said, “Go get breakfast.”

            Everyone moved except for Mickey. He looked back at Ian and said, “I’m kinda sad he didn’t try to push it.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Never wanted to give someone a black eye more.”

            Ian snorted and clapped Mickey on the back. Electricity shot through his shoulder blade, momentarily blowing all air from his body. Ian didn’t seem to notice. He just started towards the mess hall and said, “Maybe you can punch him once you’re back from ‘Nam.”

            “Alive or dead?”

            “Can you punch him if you’re dead?”

            “I’d come back as a fucking ghost just to punch the guy.”

            “I think your fist’d go right through him.”

            “Poltergeist.”

            Ian was silent for a moment and then nodded in agreement. The two of them headed into the mess hall together. Mickey managed to convince Ian to sit down with everyone else and, although not everyone was friendly towards Ian, more than enough of them had welcoming words for him. And none of them dared to say anything negative. Not with Mickey by his side like a vigilant bulldog, itching to rip out throats.


	27. Chapter 27

Keller left two days later. And for those two days he stayed in his tent, not even entertaining the visitors that still wanted him to fight for Ian’s job. Those supporters quickly waned though when they realized what a big baby Keller was and started to actually learn things under Ian’s tutelage.

            Ian got a little better at staying out of his tent. He usually made it through dinner. At least he ate dinner most nights. Mickey kept stopping by to check on him, but only for minutes at a time. He wouldn’t step into Ian’s tent. He wouldn’t stay to read in the silence or crawl into the cot again. Not that Ian asked. Ian’s heart was breakable enough in its own bubble wrap.

            Three days after Keller left, Ian sat up on his cot early in the morning. The sun wasn’t quite up yet. His eyes were once again tired of being closed but the thought of leaving his blankets was as dark as thinking of shooting himself again. He swung his legs off the edge of the cot, his feet brushing against the canvas floor. He stared across the room, wondering why he had given everyone the day off. He was required to give them a day off sometimes, but giving up his one distraction from his thoughts had been a horrible idea. Now all he had to do was listen to them. And he had no reason to shut them up.

            Footsteps walked across the crunching grass outside the tent. Ian turned his head towards the sound, bunching up the blankets in his hands. He knew he had gotten the army off his back, but a bubble of paranoia built its way into his chest. He watched the tent flap as it came up and Mickey stuck his head in. He allowed himself to breathe.

            “Oh,” Mickey said. “Sorry.”

            “Whatcha doing up?” Ian asked.

            Mickey shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

            The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. Then Mickey moved, letting the tent flap hit against the back of his head, and shifted as if he was about to leave. Ian asked, “You do this a lot?”

            “What?”

            “Check up on me. Early in the morning.”

            A shield seemed to go up behind Mickey’s eyes. “Nope.”

            “Mickey.”

            “What?”

            “If I’m not going to lie to you, you can’t lie to me.”

            Mickey was quiet for a long moment and then he shrugged. “When I wake up early, I like to make sure you didn’t off yourself in the middle of the night. You’re usually asleep.”

            “How long you stay?”

            Mickey inhaled sharply and started to make his way out of the tent. Ian felt his heart pull against Mickey’s departure and, if he had been in any condition to do so, he would have stood up and stopped Mickey. As it was, he simply said, “Don’t.”

            Mickey paused.

            “How long do you stay?” Ian repeated.

            His blue eyes flickered up to Ian’s face. Sharp, sparkling, and completely unguarded for a brief second. He no longer seemed like the tough, white trash man that had first entered Ian’s camp. He looked like a scared little kid, afraid that answering the question honestly might end with him as a bloody mess on the floor. Ian’s heart dropped a little. He hadn’t made Mickey stronger. He had made him weaker.

            “A few minutes,” Mickey admitted. “Sometimes... it’s hard to tell if you’re asleep or...”

            “Come in.”

            Mickey shook his head. “You should go back to sleep.”

            “If I do, I’ll sleep all day. Come in.”

            Mickey hesitated. His eyes looked towards the ground, as if there was some invisible barrier between himself and the tent. Slowly he placed a foot onto the canvas floor and then followed with the other one. He straightened under the green roof. He didn’t move any further into the room.

            “How’s it going?” Ian asked.

            “What?”

            Ian shrugged. “Check in time. Haven’t done it for a while.”

            “You don’t need to worry about me.”

            “It’s my job.”

            “I’m fine.”

            “No one’s ever fine.”

            Mickey shrugged. “I am.”

            Silence ebbed between them. It was heavy in the air, like all the words that they weren’t saying rested out there, trying to fight their way inbetween their lips. Ian asked, “The other day, Denny said you were sick.”

            “So?”

            “He added that you were crying.”

            “I don’t fucking cry.”

            “Mickey.”

            “My eyes might have watered up. I was puking my guts out. Something bad from the kitchen.”

            “You hadn’t eaten anything.”

            “Last night’s dinner.”

            “If that was bad, it would have come up a couple hours after having eaten it. Not to mention that the entire company would have been holed up in the bathrooms with you,” Ian countered. He stared at Mickey for a long moment, doing his best to look like he was in control. Doing his best to look steady at all. “I was worried about you.”

            “You shouldn’t have been.”

            “Tell me why not. Because this? This little bitching match you’ve got going on with yourself? It’s only making me worry more,” Ian said.

            Mickey shifted uncomfortably. He crossed his arms tightly and shrugged. “Just got sick.”

            “I know.”

            Nothing.

            Ian swallowed the sigh in his throat and wished that he could suspend the conversation. Press pause, roll back into his cot, and come back to it in a few hours. Or days. Weeks. Months. He wanted to come back to it when he could focus all his attention on making Mickey comfortable instead of focussing most of his attention on trying not to curl up into a ball.

            But it had been too long. He had stood silently while Mickey looked at him with blue eyes too bright. He had tried his best not to shake when he had pulled him out of bed. He had done his best to calm his heart’s beating, to keep telling himself that a homophobic ass like Mickey couldn’t be gay, but he knew he was lying to himself. The way Mickey looked at him, the way he took care of him, there was something there. He knew it.

            He tried again. “I know, Mickey.” And, when Mickey still did nothing other than stand defensively as far away from Ian as possible, Ian added, “I know you’re gay.”

            “Fuck you.”

            “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

            “I’m not fucking gay.”

            “You’re not?” Ian asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

            Mickey shook his head and turned for the tent flap.

            Ian said, “So you don’t take longer than normal drags on my cigarettes just to taste me? You don’t shudder at the thought of touching me? Never have you walked in on me changing and looked just a little too long?”

            “Never.”

            “Mickey.”

            “I’m not a fucking fag!” Mickey shouted. He turned on Ian and finally walked further into the room. He stopped a foot from Ian, shaking against some invisible barrier, and glared down at him. “I’m not one of you.”

            “You’re a fucking coward.”

            “Fuck you.”

            Ian stood and shoved Mickey, hard. He barely managed to make him take a step back. “I’m not judging you. I’m not asking you for anything. I’m just telling you that I know. I know what you are and what you want and I know why you won’t let yourself have it. And if you need someone in your life who understands, someone you can actually fucking talk to about what’s going on with you, then you have me. That’s all I’m telling you. I’m here for you.”

            “I don’t need you.”

            Ian swallowed. He tried to quiet his voice. Violence wasn’t going to help the situation. Violence was probably what Mickey most associated this conversation with. “Bottling this up isn’t gonna help you. It’s not something you should do when you’re about to go off to war. Don’t you want someone to know you? Don’t you want to be able to leave this world knowing that someone didn’t reject you for who you are?”

            “Who says I’m leaving this world?”

            “Who said you won’t? There’s a very real chance that you’ll die out there.”

            “Then I’ll die making my father proud.”

            “Your father isn’t fucking here! You know who’s here? I am. And I actually give half a shit about you.”

            “Well, maybe you shouldn’t.”

            “Do you have any idea how hard I’ve tried not to? Do you have any idea what I would give not to care that you might die?” Ian shouted. “I would give the entire world not to send another person I love to war without my protection.”

            Silence took over the tent. Something in Mickey softened, but his defensive posture came back with a vengeance. Ian’s words echoed between the canvas walls and he wished that just by leaving his mouth open, he could swallow them. _Another person I love. Person I love. Love._ Ian swore under his breath.

            “I’d give anything for you not to have to do that too,” Mickey replied.

            “Can you at least-”

            “No.”

            Ian swallowed. He wasn’t sure what Mickey thought the end of that sentence was. All he wanted was to know that he wasn’t crazy. That maybe he had seen that look in Mickey’s eyes. He patted down his pockets for a cigarette in the silence. Mickey slipped a carton from his pocket and handed Ian one.

            “Thanks.”

            Ian lit it and blew out the smoke. He let it waft over him and fill the tent. The nicotine burned through his veins as Mickey stood there, silently, watching him.

            “You can go,” Ian said.

            Mickey shook his head.

            “Go,” Ian repeated. “That’s an order, soldier.”

            “With all due respect, sergeant,” Mickey replied, “I don’t think you’re in any condition to be alone right now.”

            “I don’t think you’re in any position to help right now.”

            Mickey shrugged. He turned towards the desk. “You finish that book yet?” Ian was silent as Mickey rummaged around and finally found it. Ian had read about twenty pages in it. He pulled the chair out from the desk, swung it around, and sat facing Ian. “Chapter ten,” he said.

            Ian sighed and fell back onto the cot. He curled up in his blankets and turned back towards the wall of the tent. He was still shaking with the force of his own words. The L word echoed inside his skull. Slowly, the melody of Mickey’s voice became white noise blacking out that one word. And soon, Ian was fast asleep again.


	28. Chapter 28

When the horn blew the next morning, Mickey startled awake. The book fell from his hand, his thumb grazing against the pages as it tumbled onto the ground. He had started from the beginning once he knew that Ian had fallen asleep, trying to actually understand the story. He couldn’t even remember it now that he was awake.

            He stretched out his back and turned his neck to the side. Kinks of tightness ran up his spine. Every inch of him was sore from sitting up in the army-issue wooden chair. Getting to his feet, he stretched a little more and then turned his attention to Ian. He hadn’t moved an inch as far as Mickey could tell. He wasn’t even sure that Ian had woken up at the horn.

            Mickey nudged the edge of the cot with his knee. Then he nudged it harder, rocking the whole precarious structure. Ian grumbled half-heartedly.

            “Come on, man,” Mickey said. “There’s no one to stand in for you today.”

            Ian mumbled something indecipherable and Mickey sighed.

            “Get up.”

            Nothing.

            Mickey pursed his lips and then lay a hand against Ian’s head gently. He brushed back the closely cropped red hair, relishing the softness of it for a long moment. He was warmer than Mickey remembered him being. “How ya feeling?” Mickey asked gently.

            Ian sniffled.

            Mickey dropped down onto the edge of the cot, causing it to rock towards him. He settled it back on the floor by shifting his feet, but not before Ian’s warm, solid back had knocked into his. Mickey’s body buzzed at the contact, even as he ran a hand through Ian’s hair and his thoughts whirled around the possibility that they had sent Keller home too soon. If Ian didn’t get out of bed today, things could get bad fast. But Mickey didn’t want to push him harder than he had to. He had been prouder than he could imagine when Ian had just been out of bed for half a day. And when he had graduated to full days, Mickey had spent those days watching Ian weaken as the time passed. Maybe the day off hadn’t been a good idea. Maybe being on a roll was what kept Ian getting up.

            Mickey took a deep breath to stop himself from panicking. Then he removed his hand from Ian’s hair and patted him twice on the back, hard. “Let’s go. Get up, get dressed, tell us to run some fucking laps.” No response. “Do you want to send me out there unprepared and get me killed? Or do you want me to come back alive?”

            “Fuck you.”

            Even though Mickey knew it had been a low blow, he smiled at the sound of Ian’s voice ringing clear through the tent. Ian turned over in his blankets and glared at Mickey. “Get the fuck off my bed,” he said. “Go get ready for the day.”

            “I will when you do.”

            “I’m doing a spot inspection today. So you might want to wipe the drool off of your shirt.”

            Mickey’s smile only widened as he stood up and Ian tumbled out of bed. He reached for his boots and then looked back up at Mickey. “In case you didn’t notice, that was a dismissal, soldier.”

            With a low whistle, Mickey said, “Looks like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

            Ian was silent for a moment and then he dropped his eyes back down to his boots. “Sorry,” he said. He shook for a moment, his fingers fumbling over the boot laces. “Please leave.”

            Mickey hesitated for a moment, nodded even though Ian wasn’t looking at him, and headed out of the tent. He went back to his, surprised to find Denny still there, fully dressed, and pacing the tent.

            “What’s up?” Mickey asked.

            “Mail,” Denny replied.

            Mickey stared at him blankly.

            “There hasn’t been mail in a really long time,” Denny explained. “And my mom... she said she’d write every single day and I haven’t gotten a single letter and I know we’re not supposed to get letters every single day but if she had written even one, don’t you think I would have gotten it by now? What if something terrible happened to her? What if my brother couldn’t take care of her? I knew I should have never left them alone. I should have never left them in that house alone. She can’t take care of herself. She can’t-”

            “Breathe,” Mickey said.

            Denny did as he was told, but the extra air only seemed to give him more energy to speak. “She’s a widower, you know. My dad, he died over in Korea and now I’ve gone out to Vietnam and she was so worried I would die and now I’m worried that she’s died from the stress of it and I never should have left her. What if something happened to her? What if she’s the one who’s dead?”

            Mickey just stared. He had no ability to stop the rant or panic attack or whatever the fuck it was. And Denny had only reminded him that he hadn’t heard from his mother either. Or from Mandy. Of course, he had never been expecting to, but now he wondered. What if Terry had broken his mom’s wrists? What if Mandy was beaten too badly to get up and go to work? What if they weren’t writing not because Terry wouldn’t allow it, but because he had made it impossible? Mickey had to swallow his racing thoughts.

            He caught Denny by the shoulder on his next walk back to him. The man’s feet were still moving on the spot, as if they were incapable of being still. “Mail’s just a little late,” Mickey said. “Your mom’s probably sent two letters a day and they need a whole bag just for your mail. So it’s been delayed a little. But everything’s fine. Okay, Denny? Your mom’s probably taking care of your brother.”

            Denny swallowed. “How do you know that?”

            “Because she’s strong,” Mickey replied. “She’s not going to let the world bring her down. Her little boy is going off to war, and damn it if she isn’t going to see him come home a hero, okay?”

            Denny nodded and Mickey clapped him on the back. He grabbed his jacket from his cot and threw it over his shirt. “Try to look presentable,” Mickey said. “Ian’s doing a spot check.”

            “He told you that?”

            Mickey ignored the question and the raised eyebrow that went with it. He tried his best to un-rumple his uniform, tied on his good boots, and headed out of the tent. Denny trailed after him. They took up their places at the back of the group and came to attention when Ian called for it.

            Slowly, Ian moved through the ranks, flicking at loose buttons, wrinkled outfits, and stains on t-shirts. He looked at every single one of them with a cool disdain that, by the time it reached Mickey, seemed more like extreme apathy. Ian met his eyes and Mickey did his best to relay his question with his eyes: _You okay?_

            Ian ignored it or didn’t understand it. He moved on.

            Soon enough they were on their way around the camp. Mickey’s breath burned through his lungs as he ran along with the others. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that the average pace of the group had picked up by a few miles per hour. Or he was running faster than he should have, trying to get everything he felt out of his head. Trying to sweat it out.

            As they came around the last bend, Mickey was the first to drop into push-ups. It took him a moment to realize that everyone needed a minute or so to catch up to him. He heaved out a breath and blinked the sweat from his eyes. The world was spinning around him but he continued to push his body to its limits. The further he pushed it, the easier it was to ignore all thoughts of his mother, Mandy and Ian. Especially thoughts of Ian, bright against his eyelids, as he remembered the smooth feel of his hair between his fingers. Mickey grinded his hands harder into the dirt, looking for stones to break his skin against.

            He exhaled and turned over to fall onto the ground. Some men had finished before him, sitting up or standing. He was the only one on his back, blinking the blurriness from his eyes. He waited for the rest of the group to finish and, as everyone was scrambling to their feet, attempted to get to his.

            After a few moments, a hand reached down to him. He took it and pulled himself to his feet. Miller smiled at him. “Went a little hard there, Milkovich.”

            Mickey shrugged.

            “You okay?”

            “Fine.”

            Miller waited a moment and then nodded before clapping Mickey on the back. The two of them started towards the mess hall and when they were about halfway there, Miller tried again. “You know, the point of training isn’t just to train us. It’s to make us a family. So, you know, if anything’s wrong... anyone here is more than willing to listen.”

            Mickey stared at him for a long moment before nodding. “Thanks.”

            Miller inclined his head and opened the door to the mess hall. Mickey looked around at everyone as he headed for the food.  The divisions were gone. What they used to be, Mickey wasn’t even that sure except for when it came to his own group. He could name every single one of them. Thirty-nine names in almost a month and a half. It usually took him longer than that to remember the names of his teachers in school. He glanced at Denny, talking happily with a mouthful of eggs as Berns rolled his eyes at him. Mickey smiled and went to get his breakfast.


	29. Chapter 29

The mail truck trundled into camp in the middle of the afternoon. Ian waved it over, turning his head away from the cloud of dust its wheels turned up even as he blew out smoke. He glanced towards the men practicing their shooting. “Keep your elbows up, Hunt,” Ian called.

            He waited until the man shifted his grip before turning towards the soldier leaping down from the truck. He hauled up a bag full of letters and said, “Sorry it was late.”

            Ian shrugged. “These things happen.”

            The soldier started pulling out stacks of letters and piling them on the hood of the truck. Ian stopped them from sliding down, sitting them sideways instead of upright. The soldier hiked the bag back into the trunk as Ian started flicking through the letters, counting off names in his head. He was only a quarter of the way through the stacks when the soldier cleared his throat.

            “Yeah?” Ian prompted.

            The soldier removed a crisp, white letter from his back pocket. Ian froze in the middle of flipping through the letters. The blue seal was instantly familiar to him. As was its separation from the rest of the letters in the piles. For a moment, panic reared up in his throat and he thought he might be sick. His heart pounded against his chest. _It’s not Lip,_ he told himself. _It’s not my family._

            Ian swallowed. “Who?”

            “Milkovich.”

            Ian glanced towards the targets. Mickey was standing behind another man, giving him tips on how to hold the gun. He had easily taken over when Ian had started talking to the mail carrier. And although he wasn’t smiling –Ian was beginning to believe that Mickey never really smiled except when he was with him– he looked happy. And the white letter that the soldier was holding out to him was like a time bomb, ticking on that happiness.

            “What’s official army policy?” Ian asked.

            “Excuse me?”

            “On these letters,” Ian said. “How do I... what am I supposed to do?”

            The soldier shrugged. “It’s really up to the sergeant. You can just hand it off to him, like the other letters. I think that’s what most do.”

            “What if I don’t give it to him?”

            “He’ll find out eventually. His family’ll write.”

            Ian seriously doubted that. He snatched the letter from the soldier’s hand and stuffed it into his back pocket. Some of the men were starting to glance over at the truck, itching to get their hands on letters from home. Ian picked up the stacks and saluted the soldier, stepping back from the truck so that it could turn around.

            Ian held the letters up in the air. “You’ll get these at dinner.” The soldiers grumbled. “Or,” Ian suggested, “if any of you can shoot three bullets in a row, right into the target’s heart, then you get your letter.”

            The soldiers immediately turned back to the task at hand. Ian smiled slightly at their commitment, but the smile went away when he saw Mickey step out of line and light a cigarette. He looked down at the letters again and started flipping through them, mentally checking off names. He hoped against hope that maybe Mickey’s family had written to him. Maybe they had wanted to break the news before the military did. No luck.

            Exactly two soldiers managed to perfectly line up their bullets three in a row. Ian handed their letters off to them. Then the soldiers stuffed the letters in their pockets, turned around, and tried to help the others. Ian couldn’t help his smile.

            When dinner time came, Ian handed out all the letters. Mickey didn’t even come near enough for Ian to reach out. He just followed the two who had already gathered their correspondence into the mess hall. Ian swallowed and tried not to feel the weight of the white letter in his pocket. He tried not to hate the fact that he finally had a letter to give to Mickey.

            He entered the mess hall after his soldiers and slid into a spot among them. He let the conversation come and go around him, smiling at jokes and shaking his head at lewd comments. Everyone had loosened up around him, forgetting sometimes that he was their sergeant and he was overly fond of yelling at them.

            The group started to disperse and, as Mickey stood up, Ian said, as softly as he could without drawing attention to his quiet, “Come by later?”

            Mickey paused for a moment and then nodded.

            Ian felt his heart drop straight into his chest. It beat against the letter, the two playing against each other, competing over which one could make him feel worse. He hated his job. He hated being in charge. Keller was right. He was little more than a kid.

            He headed back to his tent and paced. He stopped in front of the girlie calendar and stared for a moment at the woman spread out on the hood of a military truck. Then he went back to pacing.

            It was a long time before his tent flap opened. He turned at the sound, tried to still his feet, and looked up at Mickey. Mickey stepped into the tent awkwardly and stood at the flap as he had the night before.

            “You wanted me?” Mickey asked.

            Ian nodded and gestured towards the chair. He sat down on the edge of the cot, wiggling the letter out from his pocket, but keeping it firmly behind him. He waited for Mickey to sit down and face him.

            “Little formal, don’t you think?” Mickey asked as he settled down.

            “Wasn’t sure you’d come,” Ian said. “You know, after last night.”

            Mickey shrugged. “Water under the bridge. Still would’ve checked up on you.” There was silence for a long moment as Ian stared at him, trying to break through the wall that Mickey seemed to have built behind his eyes. Everything about the other man’s posture was stiff. But that could be because Ian was acting weird. “Something going on?”

            “You got a letter,” Ian began.

            “Bullshit.”

            “It’s not... from your family.”

            Mickey smiled. “Now you’re making more sense.”

            That smile caused Ian to die a little inside. He bit down on his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, as he slid the letter out from behind him. He did his best not to shake. He swallowed the metal in his mouth in an effort not to let tears slip from his eyes. A string of curse words ran through his head as he held out the white envelope. The white envelope that would ruin Mickey. The white envelope that would blot out the only spot of sun in Ian’s life. Ian almost pulled the envelope back, wondering how he would resist the gun in his desk if Mickey was wrapped up in his own cot, far away, not worried about him anymore. And for good reason too.

            Mickey’s eyebrows creased as he took hold of the edge of the envelope. Ian held on tight and only let go when Mickey tugged against the paper. Ian folded his hands in his lap, and waited. He watched Mickey glance at the front of the envelope, ignore all of it, and rip open the top. He unfolded the letter and his eyes ran down the page.

            “Fuck,” Mickey whispered.

            The first tear left Ian’s eyes.


	30. Chapter 30

Mickey dropped the letter. His hands were shaking so hard that he balled them into fists before running a hand across his mouth. He tried to focus on his breathing, inhaling and exhaling hard enough to blow back the tears threatening to eat him whole.

            Ian slid forward on the cot and their knees knocked together. Ian said, “I’m sorry.”

            “Fuck that,” Mickey said.

            “Who?”

            Shaking his head, Mickey finally managed to look up into Ian’s eyes. His own tears were echoed there, but the streaks of water were clear across Ian’s face. Seeing his own pain drawn out across Ian’s innocence stabbed into his gut like a knife. Mickey reached out and wiped away Ian’s tears with his thumb. Ian caught his hand against his face and held it tight.

            “Iggy,” Mickey finally said.

            “How?”

            “Military bullshit,” Mickey replied. “Died in action. A hero. Probably going to earn a medal of valour or some shit.”

            “That’s good.”

            Mickey laughed. “Yeah, great. Just fucking great. Something nice and shiny that my dad can pawn for more hooch as my mom and my sister cry in the bathroom, late in the night, trying not to disturb him. Fucking hero had to go and get himself killed. Probably jumped in front of some idiot about to get shot and got his own brains blown out.” Mickey forced a bitter laugh, the sound pressing hard against his throat and drying it raw.

            Ian turned his face against Mickey’s hand and kissed his palm.

            The damn behind Mickey’s eyes broke.

            “My fucking idiot brother,” Mickey said. The words tumbled out. He kept talking through the tears, trying to divert the pain with insults. “The guy could barely hold a gun. Couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn standing less than a foot away from it with a fucking rifle. I’m surprised he lasted even one fucking week. Mandy and I had bets going. She kept saying he’d come home safe and I kept saying, fuck, Mandy. Iggy’ll be dead before his fucking boat hits the shore.

            “Who the fuck lets an idiot like that into the army? Flat-footed tool he was too. Probably disrespected every authority figure in his path. Delayed his deployment enough with all the punishments he got. Spent a month in jail even for insubordination.” Mickey stopped for a breath and it hitched in his throat. He turned it into a laugh. “I kept telling him, Ig, you’re going to get yourself shot in the head. And not by fucking Charlie either.”

            Mickey dipped his head, shaking hard and trying to convince himself it was from the laughter. Ian’s fingers dug deep around his hand, anchoring him to the world as tears streamed down his face. He scrunched up his nose and tried to stop it. Milkovich’s didn’t cry. Iggy wouldn’t want him to cry.

            “Fucking asshole probably wants a cake,” Mickey muttered. “He wrote his will before he left, made us all promise not to read it, and I’m pretty sure it’s because it said he wanted a funeral home filled to the brim with cake and to be buried with a cake on his face. Probably told them to burn the fucking flag too.” The laugh was real this time, but it burned against his throat and his smile felt strained.

            Ian was just watching him, silently. Their knees were pressed together tightly, locked into place. Mickey let his eyes close as he took a deep breath, stretching back up to his full sitting height, and then dipped his head down again. This time his forehead pressed against Ian’s. He didn’t shift back from the contact. He squeezed Ian’s hand tighter and tried his best to rip his pain away from Ian. Ian had his own pain to deal with.

            After a long moment of sitting like that, Mickey moved back. He shifted his chair away and untangled his hand from Ian. He could feel every single one of Ian’s fingers uncurling, unwilling to let him go with such a little fight.

            Mickey got to his feet and started walking around the room. He kicked the chair to the ground absentmindedly. He was all too aware of Ian’s eyes on him, gently following him through the room, making sure he wasn’t going to do anything stupid. Mickey didn’t even know what stupid thing he could do.

            “Do you have beer?” Mickey asked suddenly.

            Ian blinked. “No.”

            “Wells has beer.”

            Ian was silent.

            Mickey kicked the fallen chair again.

            “Iggy knew.”

            “What?”

            Mickey glanced towards Ian and tried to smile again. It didn’t work. “You kept asking me how I could leave this world without anyone knowing me. Iggy knew. He didn’t say anything about it and I got the feeling that he wasn’t any happier about it than my dad was but... he knew. And for the most part he didn’t care. And he used to make these god awful jokes about how much fun I would have in prison. How happy I would be in prison.” Mickey laughed again. He sniffed back the remaining tears. “He talked non-stop about James Dean. And I never had the heart to tell him that James Dean wasn’t my type.”

            “He’s my type.”

            Mickey’s smile widened as he glanced at Ian. “Kinda knew that.”

            Ian laughed. “What gave it away?”

            “Mainly your massive crush on me.”

            “Fuck you.”

            Mickey laughed and sat down beside Ian on the cot. “Got a cigarette?”

            Ian pulled one out of his pocket and placed it between his lips. He lit it, took a long, slow drag and then offered it to Mickey. Mickey licked his bottom lip and then said, “A little longer.” Ian took another drag, blew the smoke out of his nose, and then chewed on the end of the cigarette. He took one more drag and then offered it to Mickey again.

            Mickey took it and placed it between his lips. He didn’t breathe in for a long moment, just let the taste of Ian linger against his lips. It was saltier than he was used to. Probably stained by the tears in the room. Their shoulders knocked together and they spent the night passing the cigarette back and forth.


	31. Chapter 31

Ian heard the horn but didn’t open his eyes. Mickey’s weight pressed against his chest, his head nestled right under Ian’s chin, their breathing in perfect sync. The cigarette must have fallen from his hand as it was now Mickey’s fingers that were inbetween his own. The desperate calm of happiness lay heavily over his sleep-ridden mind.

            Mickey grunted and shifted slightly. Ian’s lips curved into a smile as he felt Mickey making a mental inventory of what he was touching and what he wasn’t touching. His fingers stretched against Ian’s and then squeezed slightly. Then he uncurled himself and his weight lifted off of Ian’s chest. For a moment, Ian wasn’t sure whether that made it easier or harder to breathe.

            Mickey tapped lightly against Ian’s leg. Ian grumbled pleasantly. “Time to get up,” Mickey whispered.

            “No,” Ian said. “I’m having a good dream.”

            He could feel Mickey’s smile without seeing it. “Yeah?” Mickey asked. “What’s the dream?”

            “There was a handsome man sleeping on top of me,” Ian said, “and he was going to kiss me awake.”

            A snort. “You really were dreaming.”

            Ian opened one eye to look up at Mickey. Ian’s neck was cocked at a weird angle, resting against the wall of the tent. He was able to see Mickey, fiddling with an unlit cigarette, but still sitting beside him on the bed. Ian watched him for a long time, relishing the contradiction that was Mickey’s easy comfort beside him and his awkwardness at having spent the night lying on Ian’s chest.

            “We should get up.”

            “We don’t have to.”

            Mickey smiled. “You’re kinda in charge around here.”

            “Which is why I can say we don’t have to get up.”

            Laughing, Mickey finally put the cigarette between his teeth and lit it. The smoke ached in the early morning air. Ian reached up a hand, Mickey handed off the cigarette, and he took in a long drag of Mickey’s taste –bitter and sweet. The second-hand nature of the taste was starting to drive him just a little bit crazy.

            Mickey held his hand out for the cigarette but Ian shook his head. “It still tastes like you.”

            “Give it.”

            Ian held it further away.

            Mickey reached over him, stretching to his limits, and ended up collapsing on top of Ian’s stomach. Ian’s laugh was cut off as the breath shot out of him but then came back with a vengeance as Mickey started to crawl towards his outstretched hand. Ian looped the cigarette high in the air and placed it back between his lips.

            Turning in his lap, Mickey sat up, his legs tangled over Ian’s, and leaned in close to breathe in the smoke. He took the cigarette between two fingers, slid it gingerly from between Ian’s lips, turned it around, and placed it in his mouth. He inhaled slowly, his eyes never breaking contact with Ian’s, and then blew the smoke up into the sky.

            His eyes dipped back to Ian’s the second all the smoke was gone from his lungs. Ian smiled at him, raising a hand to brush a spot of sleep away from under his eyes. He let his thumb linger against the soft skin, running it down Mickey’s cheekbone and along his jaw. Mickey inhaled tightly and then took another drag on the cigarette. As he did, Ian let his hand slip down Mickey’s neck and across his chest.

            Mickey closed his eyes. Ian tried to stop the smile on his lips as his fingers tumbled over three neat sets of abs just to catch on the edge of Mickey’s pants. Smoke blew into the air as Ian watched the serene look of pleasure on Mickey’s face and Ian was barely even touching him. He pushed away the fabric from Mickey’s shirt and let his fingers spread across the cool skin underneath. Mickey’s fingers fumbled against the cigarette.

            Then Mickey’s hand came up over Ian’s and stopped it in its path back down. He held it tight against his heart, which was hammering faster than a machine gun. Mickey’s eyes blinked open, innocent crystal blue against his rough exterior, and he shook his head ever so slightly. “We need to get up.”

            Ian was silent for a moment and then he nodded. He moved his hand out from Mickey’s shirt –slower and with more contact than was necessary– and plucked the cigarette from Mickey’s fingers. He took one last drag before putting it out on the blankets beside him.

            Slowly, Mickey crawled off of his lap and ran a hand through his cropped hair. He glanced down at Ian for a second and then said, “You okay?”

            “Yeah.”

            Mickey held eye contact for a moment longer, electricity buzzing through the air between them. Then he gave a quick nod and headed for the exit. Ian finally exhaled, the smoke running out of his lungs like it was competing in a sprint. He shuffled in the sheets, trying to think of anything other than Mickey. Running laps. _Mickey running laps_. Breakfast. _Mickey eating breakfast_. A gun. _Mickey handling a gun fresh out of the case, his hands running along the shaft, checking for chinks as he brings it up to his lips and blows the dust from the barrel._

Ian exhaled hard and forced himself to get out of his bed. Still he found himself smiling with every little movement. He straightened his clothes, ran a hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. Tried to steady himself and failed knowing that Mickey was waiting in the clearing, standing at ease, and ready to come to attention. Ian shook his head at himself.

            Then he headed for the exit. He walked into the clearing, scanning the ranks as he went, and nodding when men called out greetings. He caught Mickey’s eye for a split second as he looked up from the group he was talking to. His own smile was echoed in those perfect blue eyes.

            Rubbing the smile from his lips, Ian took up his position beneath the flag pole and yelled, “ATTEN-SHUN.” Forty pairs of boots clapped together and forty hands came up in perfect salutes. “Men, you’re looking at two more weeks here. Soon you’ll be sleeping in a jungle, hopefully, if I’ve taught you anything, with one eye open. You’re looking at the final stretch and you may not feel ready for that. But there’s one way you can feel ready for it.” Ian paused for dramatic effect. Everyone was staring at him, their eyes shining at the possibility of new information. Ian’s smile quirked. “Run double laps.”

            A couple outright boos followed that comment, but the men started running. Mickey lagged behind a bit and, as he passed Ian, he said, “Not for me though, right?”

            Ian shook his head. “No special treatment.”

            “Come on.”

            “If you suck my dick.”

            “Fuck you.”

            Mickey’s words felt serious, but then he smiled and started running. Ian shook his head, trying to quench the butterflies in the pit of his stomach. He shifted slightly and leaned against the flag pole, lighting a cigarette. The nicotine steadied him, but as soon as the paper touched his lips he knew that wasn’t the drug he had been looking for. When Mickey ran around the bend again, his eyes caught Ian’s and lingered against the cigarette for a moment. Ian slipped it between his lips and took a long, slow drag.

            He had the satisfaction of watching Mickey trip over his feet.


	32. Chapter 32

A week went by just like that. Mickey would come to Ian’s tent after dinner and end up reading or talking or sharing a cigarette in silence. He became used to Ian’s quiet, his core sadness, like it was just the colour of paint on the walls. It was a nice colour to be able to sit with whenever Mickey remembered that Iggy wasn’t coming home and that he wouldn’t be able to tell his brother anything about the war. Or about Ian.

            But Ian understood that better than anyone Mickey could have asked for. Conversations between them often turned to stories of their older brothers. That time Lip had tried to set Ian up with his girlfriend’s cousin from New York. The time Iggy had pulled Mickey out of the way when Terry had been rounding up for a kick. When Lip had told Ian that he was getting married and Ian had laughed so hard at the thought Lip walked away before telling him who he was engaged to. When Iggy had come home and announced he had signed up for the army by singing the recruitment song at the top of his lungs. Late nights chucking cigarettes out windows, shooting up shops, shoplifting candy from the general store, trying to kill each other over the last cookie... the list went on and on until Mickey was sure he remembered Ian’s past better than his own.

            Mornings were spent trying to wake up before the horn went off. Something that would have been torture became a little slice of heaven when Mickey could wait in the silence of Ian’s breath, watching his eyelashes flutter in his dreams. The calm quiet of the moments before the sun came up, when Ian was fast asleep and his sadness didn’t seem to be a tangible thing in the room anymore. And when he blinked open his eyes to see Mickey watching him and a slow smile slipped over his lips and for the briefest of moments, Mickey could pretend Ian wasn’t sad at all.

            It was on one of these easy mornings, when Mickey had woken to find Ian curled around him, that a shivering sense of nausea overtook him. He closed his eyes tight and tried to find Ian’s hand. He squeezed it hard, trying to feel the calm of him and ignore everything else. Ignore everything he had been taught. The nausea only reared its head and Mickey slipped out of bed quickly.

            His feet fumbled under him and instead of making it out of the tent, he collapsed onto the floor. He dipped his head to the ground, breathing hard, and trying not to cry. Or, at least, trying not to cry loud enough to wake Ian up.

            Almost immediately, Ian’s gentle calm was gone from the room as if his sleep was dependent on Mickey being next to him. There was a rustling and long, smooth fingers suddenly touched Mickey’s back and ran down his spine. Mickey exhaled heavily. He felt Ian kneeling down beside him, heat coming off of him in waves, and continuing to gently stroke his back.

            “Hey,” Ian said softly. “Breathe.”

            Mickey tried. Ian’s hand, carefully sending chills through him, was his anchor point to the world. If he focussed solely on Ian, the nausea ebbed and washed away on the rhythm of his fingers against Mickey’s back. The problem wasn’t Ian. The problem was never Ian. The problem was him.

            That thought brought the nausea back with a vengeance, rolling over in his stomach as self-hatred burned hot through Mickey’s veins. He could hear his father screaming in his ear. _Fucking faggot. Good-for-nothing homos. Freaks of fucking nature. We should gather ‘em all up with some sort of offer at a dance club, lock ‘em in, and burn the place fucking down._

            Ian’s lips pressed against the back of Mickey’s head. They tickled through the few loose hairs there and then found skin. Slow kisses brought his pulse back under control as Mickey blocked out all thoughts from his head. He allowed his body to steady under Ian’s touch and, when Ian pulled away, he rose to a sitting position.

            Ian’s eyes shone with concern. Concern that he didn’t need to have when the deep sadness was back, running in heavy currents through the ocean of his eyes, and not bothering to stop because it was early morning and the horn hadn’t gone off yet.

            Mickey reached up to touch Ian’s cheek and Ian placed a kiss against his palm. Mickey let his hand fall, glancing across the skin on Ian’s neck, and then pulled back into himself. He tried to smile. “Sorry.”

            Ian shook his head. “Nothing I don’t understand.”

            “How’d your family take it?” Mickey asked. Ian said nothing, so Mickey continued, “How’d they deal with it? Were they... were they okay with who... what you are? Did it take a while?” The sadness darkened in Ian’s eyes. “Oh.”

            “There’s a difference between being okay with it yourself and having the entire world look at you like you’re less than human.”

            Mickey almost laughed, but he caught the air in his throat. “So what you’re saying is your whole shtick about having someone know me was just... words. No one knows you either.”

            “Guys know me.”

            “That’s not what you meant before.”

            Silence descended on the tent as Ian averted his eyes. Mickey wished he could take the words back and not add to the pain he knew Ian was feeling, but they were already out there. So he figured he couldn’t make it worse.

            “Lip?”

            Ian laughed. His eyes shone with stars of tears he was holding back. He shook his head. “Lip... he’d do anything to not know. He’d walk in on me half naked with another guy and ask if I wanted to go out with some girl he’d met while he was smoking behind the gym.” Ian smiled. “I don’t think it was that he so much didn’t want to know as it was that he didn’t want it to be harder on me than it had to be.”

            “What to be harder?”

            “Life,” Ian said. He looked around the tent, his eyes catching on the calendar by his desk. “He wanted me to be able to live my life, the way I wanted, without anyone giving me shit for it. So even though he knew that I was gay... he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know how hard everything was going to be for me. He didn’t want to know that my dream... all of this... it was impossible.”

            “What about that? How do you see an organization that hates everything you are and think, that’s what I want to do with my life. That’s the kind of hell I want to put myself through.”

            “I was an escapee,” Ian answered. “I tried like fuck to be a die-hard. I had every higher officer convinced that that’s what I was. But my house... my sister was taking care of us before she was old enough to wear make-up. She was the one who woke up in the middle of the night when we were crying. She made sure there was food on the table, pencils in our backpacks, and a note if we got sick. My dad was passed out half the time. The other half I wished he was. My mom... I don’t know what was wrong with her. But she bounced between being the best mom I could ever ask for and slitting her wrists for fun. A couple years ago she finally managed to cut too deep.

            “God, and I was so desperate to get out of there. And the only possible way to get out of there, the only out I saw that wasn’t going to cost way too much money, was the army. So if that meant not telling anyone I was gay... well, I was already doing that. How much harder could it be to not tell people in a place where I could get tried for treason if I did?”

            “Your family loves you.”

            “Doesn’t make them good for me.”

            Mickey stared at him for a long time before he came to terms with what Ian had said. He guessed, if he thought about it, parts of his family loved him. Then, he asked, “What about you?”

            “What about me?”

            “How did you get over, you know, being what you are?”

            Ian smiled slightly. “For starters, I didn’t grow up in your house. Think that helped.” Mickey didn’t laugh and Ian’s smile vanished. He took a breath and then said, “I think... I worked my way through it. It’s hard, really fucking hard, to hate yourself for wanting someone who makes you happy.”

            “You make me happy.”

            “But you still hate yourself?”

            Mickey stared at Ian for a long moment. He caught his own reflection in his eyes and for a moment, he thought he could see himself the way Ian did. Strong. Smart. Independent. Heart of gold. Slowly, Mickey shook his head.

            “I can’t hate myself for you.”

            Ian smiled and reached forward to plant a kiss on Mickey’s forehead. Then he stood, using Mickey’s head as an anchoring point, and said, “Come on. We’ve got to get up.”

            “Horn hasn’t gone yet.”

            Ian stared at him for a second and then raised a finger into the air. The horn blew exactly as Ian’s gesture finished. He smiled.

            Mickey shook his head and slowly got to his feet. His stomach was still swimming and the emptiness of the tears he hadn’t shed was heavy in his chest. He started for the door, only to have Ian squeeze his hand as it swung back and kiss the back of it. Mickey smiled at Ian and then headed outside to meet up with the other soldiers.


	33. Chapter 33

Ian woke before the rest of camp. He rested a hand tenderly against Mickey’s head and gently pushed him off of his chest. He did his best to get out of bed without disturbing him and froze in place, one leg on the ground and the other still on the cot, when Mickey grumbled. Mickey rolled over into the bed, pulling the blankets up to cover his shoulders, and then was still.

            With a small smile, Ian left the cot, threw on a jacket, and headed out of the tent. The wind was coming in with a vengeance, blowing heavily against the canvas tent. Ian paused for a moment to check the tacking before continuing out into the cold.

            A truck was coming in on the other side of camp. Apparently, as Ian had heard through his radio, the new lieutenant had made good time coming in and was likely to be there before sunrise. There was only one week left before the men shipped out and the lieutenant would be taking over operations.

            A small breath of relief left Ian at that thought. His body still ached with exhaustion, protesting every little action, and willingly stepping to the side felt like a small piece of heaven handed down to him from a very benevolent god. But that relief came with a tugging weight in the pit of his stomach, telling him his men were leaving. Mickey was leaving. And he wasn’t sure how long he could last without Mickey.

            He stopped near the edge of the clearing and wrapped his arms around himself. Rain was starting to streak through the air, hitting his shoulders like icy bullets shot from across the ocean. Ian turned up the collar on his jacket and stamped his feet. The lieutenant should have arrived already.

            Suddenly a truck appeared down the dirt-beaten path. Its sound was camouflaged by that of the incoming storm. It came to a stop just in front of Ian and the lieutenant leaped out. He smiled, bright and white despite the pounding rain, and held out his hand. “Lieutenant Pfender.”

            Ian took his hand. “Sergeant Gallagher.”

            “Should we get inside?”

            Ian nodded and saluted the soldier in the truck. The man saluted back, turned the truck around, and was on his way out of the camp seconds later. Ian led the lieutenant into the mess hall and offered him a seat at one of the tables nearest to the door.

            “Tell me,” the lieutenant said. “How are the men looking?”

            “Well, lieutenant-”

            “Gus.”

            “Gus,” Ian conceded. He grabbed the edge of the table to stop himself from tapping the surface and put on the most professional face he could muster. “They’re strong. A lot of heart in this group. They run as a unit and are fiercely loyal to each other.”

            “And to you, from what I’ve heard.”

            Ian nodded.

            “Do you think they’ll have a problem with a shift in command?”

            Shaking his head, Ian replied, “Not if I approve of it.”

            Gus half-smiled. “Do you approve of it?”

            Every inch of Ian’s military training responded to the question immediately with the word _yes._ And while his shoulder’s straightened at the call to back a higher officer, Ian couldn’t help but voice some of the doubts running through his mind. “Depends,” he said honestly, “what are your credentials?”

            Luckily, Gus didn’t seem to take offense at the question. He settled onto the bench, taking time to collect the words from his mind, and then looked at Ian calmly. “I’ve been in the army for ten years. I’ve been in the position that you’re in now and have sent six hundred men to war. To the best of my knowledge, four hundred and seventy-eight of those men have come home safely. About a hundred of the others are alive, but with serious injuries.”

            “That’s not terrible.”

            Gus nodded. “I’ve also been to Vietnam, as a soldier, twice. Two tours, six months each. I understand what it’s like out there and what it means to fight out there. I can give these men something that you can’t. Experience. In the next week, I’ll prepare them specifically for what they’re facing. I expect to bring every single one of them home safely, sergeant.” He paused and, when Ian said nothing, added, “You couldn’t have asked for a better lieutenant.”

            “How long are they going for?”

            “One year,” Gus replied, “with the possibility of being extended for another six months.”

            Ian nodded. He felt his stomach roll. “All right, then.”

            “You’ll support me?”

            Ian smiled. “I was never not going to.”

            Gus smiled back as the horn went off. He got up from his seat and Ian trailed behind him as they headed back out into the abysmal weather. As they walked to the front of the clearing, Gus yelled, “Will they run in this?”

            Ian shrugged. “I’d make ‘em.”

            With a laugh, Gus stopped a little back from the flag pole and Ian continued on to take his usually spot. He tried his best to look strong, but the wind was battering his face and the collar of his jacket kept nicking his lips.

            Mickey was one of the first soldiers out, jogging into the storm and stopping closer than the front line usually did. The worry in his bright blue eyes went out as soon as he saw Ian and then shifted to suspicion as they landed on Gus. Almost imperceptibly, Ian shook his head and Mickey relaxed into an at-ease position.

            “Good morning,” Ian boomed as the last of the men arrived. They stood at attention at the sound of his voice, despite the fact that he hadn’t called for it. He smiled. “As you know, you’re shipping out in a week. This means that your lieutenant has come in to take over and get to know all of you. Lieutenant Pfender has proven himself to the army and is an excellent man for you to have leading you into war. Please give him a warm welcome.”

            A scattered and disheartened applause was heard from the soldiers as the lieutenant stepped forward. He smiled warmly and then shouted, “ATTEN-SHUN.” Like a well-oiled machine, the men followed the order without a fault. “I’m told that in weather like this, your sergeant would usually make you run your laps. Terrible of him, isn’t it?”

            A couple of men laughed. Ian raised an eyebrow at Gus.

            “This isn’t even rain in Vietnam,” Gus shouted. “This is a drizzle! Sure, it’s colder. But it ain’t rain. So move your asses.”

            Some of the men shot him indignant looks as they started to run, some rolled their eyes, and others smiled. More were still looking to Ian, seeing if the order was okay. Ian did his best to look completely impassive. He met the eyes of those who looked at him and blinked, trying to convey that he was no longer the person they should look to.

            Eventually all of them started out on the track, going slower because of the weather. Ian stood and watched them. He was slightly surprised that Gus made no move to go back inside. He simply stepped up beside Ian and tried to speak above the gale.

            “Any chance you have a favourite?”

            “What?”

            Gus shrugged. “They’re looking for new middle men. Might be a chance for one of them to hold back.”

            “I’m not sure I could find one that would want to, lieutenant.”

            Nodding, Gus fell silent. The wind whipped around them and Ian stared out at the empty track, waiting for the men to come back around. When they did, he caught sight of Mickey holding on to Denny’s arm, trying to keep him up in the storm. Ian’s heart beat a little faster at the sight and watched as the man he loved proved something to him that he should have figured out faster. Mickey had a heart of gold. One that might not survive the war.


	34. Chapter 34

Command of the camp shifted gradually. Mickey was the last one to stop looking at Ian for orders although he still cast suspicious glances at the lieutenant. Two days after Gus first arrived, he had sat down across the table from Mickey and started talking like they were old friends.

            “What do you want?” Mickey asked. He had come around to the lieutenant being there, even made his peace with him taking Ian’s position –after all, anything that put less stress on Ian was good– but wasn’t happy being asked to make another friend.

            Gus smiled. “I like to check in with all the drafters.”

            Mickey snorted. “Ian tell you to say that?”

            “You two are close.”

            Mickey dipped his eyes to the table and shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage. He could still feel the heat of Ian’s hands against his chest from that morning. Even the run in the chilly wind hadn’t gotten rid of the warmth he was trying his best to protect.

            “He’s a good sergeant.”

            Gus nodded. “Seems like it. I wish I had someone like him training me. Probably would have saved me from a lot of hell.”

            “Like?”

            “Catching shrapnel in my leg,” Gus replied. “Also got a bullet wound in my abdomen.”

            “Yeah, come back telling stories when you’ve gotten six bullets pulled out of your ass.”

            Gus raised an eyebrow. “How’d that happen?”

            Mickey smiled. “Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”

            Gus smiled back and started to eat his food. He melted into the crowd of soldiers, easily laughing with all of them. What had taken Ian more than a month had taken him a couple of days. His easy smile, you-can-talk-to-me attitude, and general stability seemed to have helped him a lot with the men. It wasn’t hard to see that a couple of them were happy to be out from under Ian’s indecisive thumb.

            That is, until he stood up from the table and announced the day’s activity. Although everyone had stopped looking at Ian by that morning, now all of them threw glances his way. Ian had the smallest of smiles on his lips and, when he saw everyone looking at him, he simply shrugged.

            The soldiers headed out into the clearing warily. Gus was still talking, explaining the rules of the ‘game’, but most men were too busy nervously whispering to their neighbours to hear him. Denny came up beside Mickey and started talking at a mile a minute. Mickey didn’t even have it in him to try to calm the boy down.

            Gus started handing out pellet guns. Mickey grabbed his, checked to make sure it was in order, and stood on the side Ian directed him to. As he passed, he raised an eyebrow curiously, and Ian shrugged. And not in the way he had before that said that it was the lieutenant’s game to play. This shrug let on that Ian was with his soldiers in thinking the lieutenant was insane, but he wasn’t going to do anything about it.

            Soon the men stood in two lines, twenty versus twenty, facing each other over a scattered mass of obstacles. Mickey was already marking good places to hide and better places to shoot from. He scanned the team opposite to him, trying to remember what he knew about their aim, and tried to plan his positions on the obstacle course accordingly. But it was too much information, processed too quickly, and he began to get lost behind his own train of thought. He swallowed hard.

            “All right, men,” Gus called. “These aren’t real guns. You’re not gonna die if you get shot, but it is gonna hurt like fucking hell. Which is why the goal of the game is to not get fucking shot. Simple enough?”

            The men nodded. Mickey adjusted his grip on the gun.

            “When I yell go, you’re going to run out into the field. This is not every man for himself. You are a team. You work as a group. But you have no time to strategize, no time to plan, before the other team starts shooting. Work fast, work well, and above all else, don’t get shot.”

            Gus stepped out of the field. The two teams stared at each other, gripping their guns so tight that their knuckles went white.

            “GO!”

            Mickey took a deep breath and dodged for the nearest pile of chairs. The things were set up to be good enough cover, but had enough holes to point a gun through. They had enough holes to get shot through too.

            A couple of others had chosen his position as well, and the four of them started to talk about what to do. Gunfire was already going off quickly and a couple of men were rubbing their arms where pellets had bounced off of them. Mickey poked his gun between the rungs of one of the chairs and fired off three shots in quick succession. He heard no sound that he knew to be in response to his shots.

            His heart was hammering, but mostly from annoyance. If this was what being in combat was supposed to feel like, it was a lot like being in a straight shoot out with a lot of shit in the way. And there’d been enough shootouts in his neighbourhood growing up that having shit in the way didn’t exactly change the experience that much. Being part of it instead of watching through the blinds of the front window, that was different.

            Mickey peeked around the side of the barrier and started picking off people doing the same on the other side. He ducked back quickly when he saw someone aiming at him. All the same, he got nicked on the knuckles once and another time in the shoulder.

            “How do we even fucking win this thing?” he muttered, more to himself than to the others.

            “I’m not sure there’s supposed to be a way,” Miller replied as he fired off a shot. “After all, isn’t that the point in this damn war? No end in sight, no way of winning, just a bunch of kids getting shot at and shooting back?”

            Mickey was silent for a moment and then he peeked out from behind the barrier. He took aim and fired at three separate targets. He hit two of them. While he was out, he noticed two others aiming at him, but they had shot wide. Very wide. And he started to worry whether anyone else was actually trying to hit their targets. True, they were teammates, but right now they were enemies. And enemies weren’t supposed to pull punches.

            From the corner of his eyes, Mickey saw Denny poke his head out from the pile of tires just to his left. Denny was on his team, cowering behind his gun like it was some sort of force field. Why he had even poked his head out, Mickey had no idea until he saw what the boy was looking at. Another barrier a few feet away.

            He saw Denny readying for the run and raised his gun to cover him. There were at least five men poised to hit Denny if he went for it and Denny was unaware of all of them. Mickey bit down hard on his lip to stop himself from swearing and then hit Miller to make sure that he knew to cover Denny too. The two of them waited, tense behind the chairs, and watched Denny gauge the distance.

            With a start, the boy went for it. Mickey started shooting but Miller’s gun jammed. Mickey was out of bullets with just two shots. “Fuck,” he muttered. He looked out at Denny, who was simply falling over himself in order to make it across the ground. “Fuck.”

            Mickey dropped the gun and dashed out from cover. He leaped on Denny’s back, shoving the boy forward, practically launching him across the ground and behind the next barrier. Pellets pecked across his skin, tearing into his uniform. A couple nicked his cheeks. At least he had finally found the soldiers who weren’t afraid to shoot someone.

            He scrambled after Denny and sat straight against the sideways table. He took a heavy breath and then said, “What the fuck were you thinking?”

            “Better vantage point.”

            “Yeah. Sure. If you don’t mind getting fucking killed on the way.”

            “They’re not real bullets, Mick.” But even as he said it, he rubbed hard at the spots on his chest where the pellets had hit him. Tiny tears showed through his thin t-shirt and he was breathing heavily. “It’s not a problem if I get shot.”

            “The purpose was to _not_ get shot,” Mickey replied as he checked his own wounds. Most of them were little more than tiny red spots across his skin. He touched his hands to his face and came away with small traces of blood. He swore bitterly.

            “You didn’t have to do that.”

            “We’re family, Denny. I get shot for family.”

            Denny smiled. “You dropped your gun.”

            “I was out of bullets.”

            “Want mine?”

            Mickey took the gun and then peered over the top of their barrier. He immediately ducked back down and shook his head. “You were right about one thing at least. It’s a good place to shoot from.”

            The two of them took turns shooting, Mickey silently adjusting Denny’s aim whenever the boy tried to purposefully aim wide. Replacement ammo was thrown into the middle of the field when all the guns were running low and a couple brave souls rushed forward for them, throwing them back to others on their team.

            The sun lowered in the sky, casting a reddish glaze across the field. For a moment, with the gunfire coming in bursts and the air warming slightly as the sun came closer to the earth, Mickey’s heart slowed to the pace of an animal lying in wait for its prey. He had gotten his own gun back, changed positions several times, and worked with almost everyone on his team. He had shot almost everyone on the other team.

            Everyone ran out of bullets and, instead of throwing out more, Gus clapped his hands. “Well done, men. Clean up and head to dinner.”

            Mickey’s stomach rumbled in response but he waited a long moment before leaving the cover of the tire pile. He double-checked his gun before handing it back to the lieutenant with a nod. He was hot, sweaty, and burning with the desire to fill himself with calories. His entire body ached from being hunched over and his mind tired as it finally got a chance to stop thinking strategy.

            As he walked out from the field, a hand gently came down on his back. “You okay?” Ian asked.

            Mickey nodded.

            “Let’s get you cleaned up. You’ve got blood everywhere.”

            Mickey glanced down at his shirt and saw several small spots of blood. New red dots showed on his skin and others had already faded to purple. He rubbed a hand across his face and more blood came off on his fingertips. He smiled.

            “I probably look like fucking Frankenstein.”

            “If Frankenstein was hot,” Ian replied quietly.

            Mickey laughed and let Ian lead him back to his tent.


	35. Chapter 35

Ian was quiet as he sat on the chair with Mickey across from him, sitting silently on the cot. The first-aid kit was sitting on his lap. It was a bit overkill. All Mickey had were a few scratches and a lot of bruises. Ian took the antiseptic wipes out of the bottom and set the case aside.

            “This is gonna sting,” he warned.

            “Worse than the bullets?” Mickey asked.

            With a snort, Ian reached forward and gingerly touched the wipes against the cuts on Mickey’s face. Mickey winced, pulling back slightly. Ian reached up with his other hand to hold Mickey’s head in place and gently wiped away the blood, trying his best to get the scratches to be unnoticeable. But even with the blood gone, they still stood out bright and red against Mickey’s skin. Ian was loathe to leave them to be added to Mickey’s list of permanent scars, but he couldn’t do anything to help it. And most likely they’d be gone in a week’s time.

            He crumpled the wipes in his hand and threw them at the trash can. They bounced off the rim and landed on the floor of the tent. Ian stared at the ball for a moment before turning his eyes back to Mickey.

            “Thanks,” Mickey said.

            Ian made himself nod. Mickey was watching him, so he tried to seem okay, but the entire world felt like it was falling down on top of him. A cast of darkness, a new wave of sadness, was working its way down and Ian felt that Mickey could sense the new weight . Mickey reached out and placed a hand on Ian’s leg.

            “Hey,” he said softly. “You all right?”

            Ian tried to nod, but ended up shaking his head instead. His entire body shook with him and when he took a deep breath to steady himself, he only managed to be still for the brief moment when he inhaled.

            Mickey fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it, and took a long, slow drag. He played more with the paper against his tongue than the smoke in his lungs. Then he offered it to Ian.

            With a shaking hand, Ian took the cigarette and placed Mickey’s taste against his lips. He breathed in deeply and then let the smoke out through his nostrils, trying to swallow most of it. Bitter fire ran through his lungs but he didn’t cough. He took another slow drag before Mickey said anything else.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “I don’t want you to go.”

            Mickey’s eyes dropped to the ground, a light, forced smile playing across his lips. He shrugged. “There’s nothing to be done about it.”

            Ian hesitated. He slipped his hand over Mickey’s and squeezed it. Mickey squeezed back. Ian said, “What if... there was something I could do?”

            Mickey blinked.

            “They’re looking for someone to rise the ranks,” Ian explained. “I don’t know what they’re looking for but... I’m told it’ll get someone out of the war.”

            “Ian...”

            “You’re the perfect candidate. You’ve been helping me for most of the last month. No one would question it. Everyone can see it in you. The leadership potential. The mark of something more than just another soldier. I can get you out, Mickey.”

            Mickey swallowed and let his eyes drop from Ian’s earnest expression.

            Ian pushed harder, his heart pounding in his chest. He squeezed Mickey’s hand tighter even as he felt it slipping away from him. “You’re not gonna make it. And I know we’ve been skirting around saying it, but out there? During that exercise? I don’t think a single soldier was shot more times than you were.”

            “They’re fake fucking bullets,” Mickey replied. His voice was soft over the harsh words and he swallowed. “I’ll be less reckless out there.”

            Ian shook his head. “It’s not about being reckless. I don’t think I saw you do one thing that was an act of stupidity. You kept going after others. You covered other men when you didn’t have a bullet in your gun. You kept dragging people to safety, putting yourself in danger to save the others. You can’t... you can’t fucking do that, Mickey.”

            “I’m protecting the team. It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

            “If you keep taking bullets like that, you can’t protect them.”

            “I’m not taking real bullets-”

            “But you will,” Ian snapped. He heaved out a breath and let go of Mickey’s hand so that he could press the heels of his hands into his eyes. Dropping his hands into his lap, he stared into Mickey’s blue eyes. “Deny it,” he whispered. “Please. Tell me that you’re not gonna jump in front of Miller or Wells or Barber. Tell me you’ll stay behind the fucking trees.”

            Mickey was silent. He ran his tongue nervously along his bottom lip.

            Ian scrunched up his nose, trying hard not to cry. “You’re not coming home if I let you leave. And Mickey, I swear to fucking god if I get a letter telling me that you’re..” Ian’s voice cracked over the last words and he coughed to clear his throat. “I can’t read that letter, Mick.”

            “You think I want you to?” Mickey asked. “Fuck no. My dad’s gonna be using that letter as a coaster for weeks before my mom ever reads it. I’m not the one here with a death wish.”

            “No, you’re not,” Ian agreed. He shifted back in the chair even as Mickey shifted forward. The ghost of contact lingered in the miniscule space between their knees, but neither of them moved to close it. Ian took a deep breath and tried to smile. “But you’re the one who wants to save everyone who does have one.”

            Silence filled the room as the two of them stared at each other. Mickey offered no reply, no defense of his actions, and Ian’s heart sunk into the pit of his stomach. He sniffed. His body was still with the tension of the room and the look in Mickey’s eyes was the only thing holding him in place. He’d seen that look before. The silent apology that couldn’t be brought into words. He could feel Mickey leaving him already.

            “Let me do this,” Ian said. His voice was soft, so soft he was worried Mickey couldn’t hear him. And although he had no real hope that Mickey would say yes, he had to try. “Let me offer you the promotion.” Silence. “I can save you, Mick.”

            “Ian,” Mickey said. The strain in his voice almost snapped Ian in two. That voice, the one that had called out so roughly on the first day and said so many awful things, was now the softest that Ian had ever heard anyone’s voice be. The pain sitting on the edges of that one word stabbed into Ian like a knife and he averted his eyes, trying hard not to cry.

            “Ian,” Mickey repeated, this time quieter. He reached out and lifted Ian’s chin so that he was looking at him. Mickey dropped his hand almost immediately. “They’re my family. I can’t let them go out there alone.”

            “They’re not alone.”

            “I’ll feel like they are. And I’ll blame myself for every single one of them that comes home in a coffin.” Mickey shifted so he was on the very edge of the cot and their knees knocked together. He took the burning cigarette from between Ian’s fingers and took a long drag before handing it back to him. Ian stuck it between his lips, but found it hard to breathe. “I have to. You understand that, don’t you?”

            Ian nodded shakily.

            Mickey caught his hand in his and whispered, “I wish I didn’t have to. I would give fucking anything to not care about those assholes. Absolutely anything, Ian. But I didn’t have a family before them.”

            Finally, Ian broke and the tears came running down his face. Mickey placed a hand on the back of his neck and leaned their foreheads together. Ian couldn’t tell whether Mickey was shaking too or if he was shaking so badly that he made Mickey move too.

            After a long moment, Ian let out a shaky breath and slipped the cigarette out of his mouth. “Can I ask you for just one thing then? Before-”

            “Anything.”

            “Kiss me.”


	36. Chapter 36

Mickey had no idea why those two words made his hand slip from the back of Ian’s neck. All the warmth of Ian had flooded out of his body, despite the fact that their shaking legs were still touching. Mickey shifted back and stopped them from touching, stopped their foreheads from being pressed together, and tried to breathe. All the air seemed to have gone out of the room.

            He felt more than saw Ian’s bitter smile. “I knew it,” Ian whispered. He was still crying, but he managed a bit of a choked laugh. “I knew it.”

            “Ian...”

            “Stop. Just fucking... stop saying my name.”

            Ian was on his feet and had walked to the far side of the room. Mickey watched him pace in a small circle, curling his hands around his head like he was used to there being hair there. Mickey didn’t know why, but he felt Ian’s pain more acutely than his own. And the bubble of fear in his chest felt like little more than a hiccup waiting to happen.

            Ian turned back to him. “I thought... I thought this was working.”

            “It is.”

            “Then why...”

            Mickey shook his head. His feet dangled off the edge of the cot and he knew that their suspension in the air was the same as the suspension of his heart. He stared at his toes since the darkness in Ian’s eyes was too hard to look at.

            “That’s a lot.”

            “A lot would be asking to let me send you off to war like a lover should,” Ian snapped.

            Mickey winced at the word lover and ducked his head in response to Ian’s harsh tone. His mind was playing through dreams he had had of kissing Ian and going back through moments when they had been so close. The taste of Ian on cigarettes was hot in Mickey’s mouth.

            “Mickey?”

            Mickey looked up again, watching as Ian’s eyes scanned him. Mickey’s hands were pressed together tightly and he wanted to back up further, but he knew he was straining the canvas of the tent as it was. He was certain he’d never been further from Ian while in the same tent, but he felt like Ian was touching him, like those long, smooth fingers were playing across the skin of his chest and Ian’s lips were getting just a little too close to his. He swallowed the thought.

            “Don’t you want to?” Ian asked.

            Mickey opened his mouth, but found himself at a loss for words.

            Ian swore and turned in a circle one more time. “I’m such a fucking idiot. Here I am thinking... thinking maybe there’s something here and you’re just trying to stop me from shooting myself in the head. You’ve been doing a fucking great job by the way. Really thought you might want-”

            “Hey,” Mickey said. “It’s not like that.”

            “No?” Ian asked. “Then what’s it like? What’s it fucking mean to you when you fall asleep in my arms? When I wake up crying and you kiss the tears off my cheeks? When we share cigarettes in the morning and our bodies are pressed together in the night and I can taste you so heavily against my tongue and our eyes hit like a lightning storm in the dark? What does that mean to you, Mickey? Anything?”

            “Everything.”

            “Then why won’t you kiss me?”

            Mickey slipped forward on the cot. “I haven’t... I don’t kiss guys. Not since...”

            “Mick...”

            “Now you’re doing it.”

            Ian smiled, but it was weak. “There’s no one here to beat you up. Your dad’s not gonna catch you this time.”

            Mickey licked his bottom lip. His heart pounded in his chest. “I’ve never... really wanted to kiss someone like I want to kiss you.”

            Ian’s smile broadened, actually becoming something that didn’t seem so sad. He took a step closer to Mickey and said, “I feel the same way.”

            “Bullshit,” Mickey said. “I’m nothing but another warm mouth to you.”

            Ian shook his head. “No.”

            For a second, Mickey’s whole body thrummed and then he pushed off of the cot. He walked right up to Ian, so there was little more than a breath between them, and paused. Their eyes locked together, shining with new found stars, and Ian placed a hand against Mickey’s cheek.

            “Only if you want to,” Ian whispered.

            Mickey nodded and closed the space between them. Their lips met softly, neither of them moving for a moment, just feeling the warmth. Then Ian’s hand pulled Mickey forward and their mouths opened, tongues slipping into the kiss. Mickey tasted Ian’s cigarette smoke and dust sharper than he ever had before. He fell into the kiss, letting go of all his inhibitions, and closing all the space between them.

            Their arms wrapped around each other as the kiss deepened. Each of them had a hand on the back of the other’s head, trying to bring them as far into themselves as they could.

            Ian lost his breath first, pulling back suddenly with a small gasp. His forehead rested against Mickey’s as Mickey let out a soft laugh that was cut off by the need for air. Ian dipped forward and kissed him softly, playing against his lips and moving back when Mickey responded in kind.

            Ian’s nose rubbed against Mickey’s but he kept his lips tantalizingly out of reach as he waited for Mickey to look up at him. When their eyes met, Ian’s smile faded and he whispered, “Don’t you dare fucking die on me.”

            “Right back atcha,” Mickey murmured.

            Then he darted forward for another kiss and Ian obliged. Eventually they moved onto the cot, kissing slowly, speeding up and slowing down again. Ian’s lips left to trail kisses down Mickey’s neck but always stopped before the collar of his shirt. Cold hands trailed down warm chests and after hours they fell asleep, lips mere millimetres apart.


	37. Chapter 37

Long nights passed with slow kissing. Ian had the luxury of standing back and sipping coffee while Lieutenant Pfender ran the men through their drills. It gave Ian a twisted sense of pleasure to see Mickey yawning, rubbing his eyes, or tripping over his feet from exhaustion. Whenever Mickey caught him smiling, Mickey would quickly flip him off.

            Unfortunately, time was in short supply. Four days later, Ian woke up to the sound of a bus trundling into the camp. He felt his heart pull backwards, trying to nestle itself into Mickey’s warmth. Although he was fast asleep, his lips remained ghosting against the back of Ian’s neck.

            Ian stayed still in his arms for as long as he could, trying his best to pretend that the bus was his imagination and that Mickey had accepted his offer not to go to war. But eventually the horn sounded and Mickey stirred behind him. Ian rolled over to face him.

            “Hey,” Mickey rasped as he blinked open his eyes.

            “Hey.”

            The two of them stared at each other for a long moment before Ian reached forward and gave Mickey the smallest of kisses. Then he shifted back and left the cot, pulling his shirt off of the floor and tossing Mickey’s over to him. His skin felt cold without Mickey’s pressed up against it, but he knew it was a cold he was going to have to get used to.

            “You have to write,” Ian said.

            He could hear Mickey shifting on the cot, but couldn’t bring himself to look at him. “’Course,” Mickey said.

            “Every day.”

            Mickey snorted. “And who do I tell people I’m writing to?”

            Ian shrugged.

            “My girlfriend?” Mickey suggested.

            “Fuck off.”

            Mickey stood and walked over to Ian. He kissed him, long and soft, and then rested their foreheads against each other. His eyes were swimming with emotion, but the small smile on his lips didn’t manage to touch them. Ian could feel him steadying himself, like he was the anchor that kept Mickey still. Ian closed his eyes to stop himself from crying.

            “I’m coming home,” Mickey said. “So you better fucking be here.”

            Ian smiled. “Got new cadets coming in a week. Look better than you assholes.”

            Mickey laughed and stopped himself from kissing Ian again. He let his hand slide off of Ian’s neck and took a step back, keeping the smile in place. Ian smiled back, knowing it was no more than a ghost of Mickey’s, but unable to manage anything better.

            Mickey clapped him on the shoulder and headed out of the tent. Ian touched a hand to his lips, trying to memorize the last kiss Mickey had given him. Possibly the last kiss that Mickey would ever give him.

            With a shudder, Ian took a breath to steady himself and wiped at his dry eyes. Then he followed Mickey out of the tent, heading to the clearing where all forty of his men stood at attention, Lieutenant Pfender facing them. Ian nodded at the lieutenant and he nodded back.

            Ian stepped forward to look at the forty men he had spent the last two months with. Asked, he could have told anyone their full names, the names of everyone in their families, which ones had dogs and which ones had cats, who had a girl waiting for them and who was hoping that a girl was worried for them. He knew every single one of them and could figure out their families better than he could figure out his own. He cleared his throat.

            “Today is the day you leave me,” Ian said. “And I wish you didn’t have to. I wish we weren’t at war and none of you were heading into danger. But the world has offered us a challenge. The challenge of communism in Vietnam and fuck it if the United States of America will ever back away from a challenge.

            “You’re ready for this. You’ve been ready for weeks now. All we’ve been doing is making sure you’re comfortable. I have every confidence that all of you are going to come back here with both feet on the ground. And you better not fucking let me down.”

            The men nodded solemnly.

            Ian drew himself up to attention and saluted them. They all saluted back. He stepped back and let the lieutenant go over the instructions for travel. Ian scanned the crowd until his eyes touched on Mickey’s and held his blue gaze until it was time for the soldiers to start moving.

            As they passed, they reached out to shake Ian’s hand. He shook every one steadily and wished them good luck. He forced himself to smile at them, to make jokes when they offered him an in, and to clap a couple of them on the back. Denny surprised him by reaching out for a hug and Ian laughed as he patted the kid on the back.

            Finally, Mickey stopped before him, a smile on his face, but tears in his eyes. Ian nodded at him and offered him his hand. “Good luck, Milkovich.”

            Mickey hesitated and Ian waited for a long moment, trying his best not to let his shaking become visible. Then Mickey moved forward and wrapped his arms around Ian. His fists pressed into Ian’s back and Ian hugged him back fiercely, nestling his head into the crook between Mickey’s neck and shoulder.

            They stood like that for longer than they should have. Ian’s face was scrunched up, trying hard to hold onto the tears. Only one came out and was immediately soaked up in Mickey’s new, clean uniform. He felt Mickey’s lips peck the side of his neck and he carefully released his grip.

            Mickey’s lips brushed against his ear as he moved back. He whispered, “I love you.”

            Then Mickey stepped back and all Ian could do without breaking down was nod. Mickey took his hand and shook it once. Their fingers lingered against each other for a moment too long before Mickey stepped away and the next soldier stepped in front of Ian.

            Because of that, Ian didn’t see Mickey get on the bus. He didn’t know where he was sitting as the doors closed and he waved solemnly. He thought for a moment that he could see Mickey’s face in the glass and a hand waving goodbye. The bus headed out and, as soon as it was nearly out of sight, Ian fell onto the ground, every inch of him shaking.


	38. Epilogue

Ian spun his spoon around in a bowl of soggy cereal. Carl and Debbie were getting ready for school around him. Debbie still had one of the pancakes he had made between her teeth. Carl was collecting pocket knives from one of the drawers. Ian couldn’t find the words to tell him not to.

            Fiona had left for work already. Frank was god knows where. Ian was about to be left alone in the empty house, half wondering when Lip was going to get out of bed and half reminding himself that Lip was buried several miles away. Every day was like that, though. Had been for nearly a year.

            Ian got up once the kids were gone and dumped the rest of his cereal into the sink. He grabbed his apron from the hook beside the fridge and shoved it in the bag. Washing dishes was possibly his least favourite thing to do, but it was hard to explain being discharged from the army for shooting someone.

            In the foot. The guy wouldn’t have made a good soldier anyways.

            Checking the clock, Ian tried to stop himself from heading out to work early. But he had nothing else to do. The world was a monotone around him. The clock ticked desperately slowly and Ian knew that there would be nothing on the TV he wanted to see. He had stopped listening to the news list off the dead a few months ago, convinced he had missed Mickey’s name while he was being discharged.

            He swung his bag over his shoulder and headed to the front door. He opened it without much thought and nearly ran into the person standing on the porch. The hand was rapidly lowered from the door and a familiar smile met Ian’s eyes.

            “Hey,” Mickey said.

            “Hey?” Ian replied. He could feel a smile twisting across his lips even as he tried to swallow it. The world suddenly felt like it was in full colour. “Fucking hey?”

            Mickey considered. “Hello, sergeant?”

            “Fuck you,” Ian said. He shook his head. “It’s been a year and a half. A year and a fucking half and I haven’t gotten one letter since leaving the army?”

            “I didn’t know your address.”

            “I thought you were dead.”

            “I’m not.”

            Ian shoved Mickey back, but Mickey barely moved. Ian stepped out onto the porch, closing the space between them, and looked down into Mickey’s blue eyes. Blue eyes that were a little harder than they had been and a little sadder, but possibly happier than Ian had ever seen them.

            “You didn’t try to get it? People are dying left and right every day and I’m sitting here waiting to hear from a newscaster whether or not you’ve gotten your brains blown out by some commie peace of shit. Mickey, I thought you were dead. You scared the fucking shit out of me.”

            Ian didn’t even manage to make Mickey’s smile falter. He simply seemed to beam at the proximity of their bodies and the heat coming off of Ian. “Help if I say I’m sorry?” Mickey asked.

            “Fuck you,” Ian said. “I thought you were dead.”

            “But I’m not,” Mickey replied. “So how about you shut the fuck up and greet me the way you should welcome a man home from war.”

            Ian blinked at the sparkle in Mickey’s eyes. Mickey’s tongue darted out, playing across his bottom lip, and he stepped a little closer to Ian. Ian shook his head, his smile spreading like wildfire, and whispered, “Fuck you.”

            He kissed Mickey hard, relishing the taste that had been missing from his mouth for eighteen months. Mickey met him with passion and an urgency that hadn’t been in his kissing before. He pushed Ian over the threshold of the house and the door slammed behind them as they fell to the ground.


End file.
